"Rabbits?" said Tilda with scorn. "D'yer know 'ow to skin one if we caught 'im?"
"No, I don't," he confessed.
"And when he's skinned, there's the cookin'; and we 'aven't so much as a box of matches. . . . That's the worst of boys, they 're so unpractical."
"Well, then, we can hunt for gulls' eggs."
"That's better; if," she added on an afterthought, "gulls 'appen to lay eggs at this time of year—which I'll bet they don't."
"Look here," said the boy severely, "we haven't searched yet.
What's the use of giving in before we've tried? Nobody starves on the
Island, I tell you; and—and I can't bear your talking in this way.
It isn't like you—"
"I can't 'elp it," owned poor Tilda with a dry sob.
"—breaking down," he continued, "just when we've reached, and all the rest is going to happen just as the book says."
"That's likely!"
"It's certain." He pulled out the tattered, coverless volume. "Why, I do believe"—he said it with a kind of grave wonder—"you're hankering after that silly cottage!"