"Here you are," she said presently, extending a glass filmed with the breath of the ice-cold liquid it contained.
"Thank you," said Eleanor; and drank thirstily. "Who are you?" she demanded point blank, returning the glass.
"Mrs. Clover," said the woman as bluntly, if with a smiling mouth.
"Well"--the woman turned to the stove and busied herself with coffee-pot and frying-pan while she talked--"this _was_ the Wreck Island House oncet upon a time. I calculate it's that now, only it ain't run as a hotel any more. It's been years since there was any summer folks come here--place didn't pay, they said; guess that's why they shet it up and how your pa come to buy it for a song."
"Where is the Wreck Island House, then?" Eleanor put in.
"In Long Island Sound, about a mile off 'n the Connecticut shore. Pennymint Centre's the nearest village."
"That means nothing to me," said the girl. "How far are we from New York?"
"I couldn't rightly say--ain't never been there. But your pa says--I heard him tell Eph once--he can make the run in his autymobile in an hour and a half. That's from Pennymint Centre, of course."
Eleanor pressed her hands to her temples, temporarily dazed by the information. "Island," she repeated--"a mile from shore--New York an hour and a half away ...!"
"Good, comfortable, tight little island," resumed Mrs. Clover, pleased, it seemed, with the sound of her own voice; "you'll like it when you come to get acquainted. Just the very place for a girl with your trouble."
"My trouble? What do you know about that?"
"Your pa told me, of course. Nervous prostration's what he called it--says as you need a rest with quiet and nothing to disturb you--plenty of good food and sea air--"
"Land!" said the woman in a kindly tone--"I might 've known I'd get on your poor nerves, talking all the time. But I can't seem to help it, living here all alone like I do with nobody but Eph most of the time.... There!" she added with satisfaction, spearing the last rasher of bacon from the frying-pan and dropping it on a plate--"now your breakfast's ready. Draw up a chair and eat hearty."
She put the plate on the red table-cloth, flanked it with dishes containing soft-boiled eggs, bread and butter and a pot of coffee of delicious savour, and waved one muscular arm over it all with the gesture of a benevolent sorceress. "Set to while it's hot, my dear, and don't you be afraid; good food never hurt nobody."