"It was very nice of her," said Belle sweetly, peeling the juicy fruit slowly with her penknife as they turned away down the street. "So stupid of me to make such a mistake! Have another, darling; they're quite delicious, though they are so small."
Isobel walked along rather silent and preoccupied. Though she would not allow it to herself, down at the bottom of her heart there was the uncomfortable suspicion that Belle had known all the time, and had meant to give the wrong coin.
"She couldn't!" thought Isobel. "She must have made a mistake, and thought she really had a penny in her pocket. Yet at the level crossing she certainly said the halfpenny was all she had until she got her weekly money to-morrow. Perhaps she forgot. Oh dear! I know she didn't mean to cheat or tell stories—I'm sure she wouldn't for the world—but somehow I wish it hadn't happened."
CHAPTER VII.
THE "STORMY PETREL."
"A boat, a boat is the toy for me,
To rollick about in on river and sea,
To be a child of the breeze and the gale,
And like a wild bird on the deep to sail—
This is the life for me."
THE United Sea Urchins' Recreation Society usually met every morning upon the strip of green common underneath the cliffs which they had appropriated to their own use, and were prepared to hold against all comers. The Rokebys, who were enthusiastic bathers, had a tent upon the shore, and spent nearly half the morning in the sea, where they could float, swim on their backs, tread water, and even turn head over heels, much to the envy of the Wrights, who made valiant efforts to emulate these wonderful feats, and nearly drowned themselves in the attempt. The two little Barringtons were solemnly bathed each day by their mother in a specially-constructed roofless tent, which was fixed upon four poles over a hole previously dug in the sand, and filled by the advancing tide. Here they were obliged to sit for ten minutes in the water, with the sun pouring down upon them till the small tent resembled a vapour bath, after which they were massaged according to the treatment recommended by a certain Heidelberg doctor in whom Mrs. Barrington had great faith, and whose methods she insisted upon carrying out to the letter, in spite of Ruth's indignant remonstrances and Edna's wails.
"Ruth says bathing's no fun at all," confided Isobel to her mother; "and I shouldn't think it is, if you can't splash about in the sea and enjoy yourself. Mrs. Barrington won't let them try to swim, and they just have to sit in a puddle inside the tent, while she flings cans of sea-water down their backs. Edna says the hot sun makes the skin peel off her, and she can't bear the rubbing afterwards. Her clothes fridge her, too; they always wear thick woollen under-things even in this blazing weather, their mother's so afraid of them taking a chill."
"Poor children!" said Mrs. Stewart; "I certainly think they have rather a bad time. It must be very hard to be brought up by rule, and to have so many experiments tried upon you."
"Ruth says she has one comfort, though," continued Isobel: "they're allowed to speak English all the time during the holidays. At home they have a German governess, and they talk French one day, and German the next, and English only on Sundays. Ruth hates languages. She won't speak a word to mademoiselle, but she says the Wrights simply talk cat-French—it's half of it English words—although they're so conceited about it, and generally say something out very loud if they think anybody is passing, even if it's only Il fait beau aujourd'hui, or Comment vous portez-vous? The Rokebys poke terrible fun at them; they've made up a gibberish language of their own, and they talk it hard whenever the Wrights let off French. It makes Charlotte and Aggie quite savage, because they know they're talking about them, only they can't understand a word."