How came it, then, that the Squire's relations--his cousin and her mother--lived in a small and unpretentious cottage, and were obviously not well off as regards material goods?
Copplestone had the faculty of seeing things at a glance, and refined and cultivated as the atmosphere of Mrs.Greyle's parlour was, it had taken no more than a glance from his perceptive eyes to see that he was there confronted with what folk call genteel poverty.
Mrs.Greyle's almost nun-like attire of black had done duty for a long time; the carpet was threadbare; there was an absence of those little touches of comfort with which refined women of even modest means love to surround themselves; a sure instinct told him that here were two women who had to carefully count their pence, and lay out their shillings with caution.

Genteel, quiet poverty, without doubt--and yet, on the other side of the little bay, a near kinsman whose rent-roll must run to a few thousands a year! And yet one more curious occasion of perplexity--to add to the other two.
Copplestone had felt instinctively attracted to Audrey Greyle when he met her on the sands, and the attraction increased as he walked at her side towards the village.

In his quiet unobtrusive fashion he had watched her closely when they encountered the man whom she introduced as her cousin; and he had fancied that her manner underwent a curious change when Marston Greyle came on the scene--she had seemed to become constrained, chilled, distant, aloof--not with the stranger, himself, but with her kinsman.

This fancy had become assurance during the conversation which had abruptly ended when Greyle took offence at Stafford's brusque remark.
Copplestone had seen a sudden look in the girl's eyes when the fisherman repeated what Oliver had said about meeting a Mr.Marston Greyle in America; it was a look of sharply awakened--what?
Suspicion?
apprehension ?--he could not decide.

But it was the same look which had come into her mother's eyes later on.