‘Don’t talk of such dreadful things, Bertie; I can’t bear it! And there’s Rose Rollstone!’
Ida would have done her utmost to keep her brother and Rose Rollstone apart at any other time, but she was at the moment only too glad to divert his attention, and allowed him, without protest, to walk up to Rose, shake hands with her, and rejoice in her coming home for good; but, do what Ida would, she could not keep him from recurring to the thought of the little cousin of whom he had been very fond.
‘Such a jolly little kid!’ he said; ‘and full of spirit! You should have seen him when I picked him up before me on the cob. How he laughed!’
‘So good, too,’ said Rose. ‘He looked so sweet with those pretty brown eyes and fair curls at church that last Sunday.’
‘I can’t make out how it was. The tide could not have been high enough to wash him off going round that rock, or the other children would not have gone round it.’
‘Oh, I suppose he ran after a wave,’ said Ida hastily.
‘Do you know,’ said Rose mysteriously, ‘I could have declared I saw him that very evening, and with his nursery-maid, too!’
‘Nonsense, Rose! We don’t believe in ghosts!’ said Ida.
‘It was not like a ghost,’ said Rose. ‘You know I had come down for the bank-holiday, and went back to finish my quarter at the art embroidery. Well, when we stopped at the North Westhaven station, I saw a man, woman, and child get
in, and it struck me that the boy was Master Michael and the woman Louisa Hall. I think she looked into the carriage where I was, and I was going to ask her where she was taking him.’