Hughie salved them, miraculously unbroken, and replaced them in the basket with precision.
"How delightful, dear Pamela!" cried Miss Chance beaming. "Now where do you spring from? Do you know the most odd thing happened a short time ago! As Hughie and I were coming slowly up from the cove at Ramsworthy--very slowly--I was quite convinced that I saw you and another girl exactly your height, you seemed to be carrying something. Just for one moment I saw you in the mist, against the sky line, as it were. But fog is so terribly deceptive that I mistrusted my own eyes. It was only for an instant--you seemed to be just on the top of the cliff--then you disappeared."
"Well," said Pam, not at all afraid of the Floweret's acuteness--because it did not exist, "I was on the cliff top, and I was carrying something. The fact is, Miss Chance, I've had a pretty lively adventure, and it's a bit of a mercy--it's a real big mercy, when one comes to think of it, that I'm here to tell my tale."
She walked on with them, carrying her eggs, and recounted her story, very briskly--simply leaving out her double.
She told how she went over the cliff, because of the oddness of the sea-bird scream, found little Reuben, and hauled him out of danger. She said very little, laying no stress on the terrible difficulty and danger of the feat.
Hughie made no remark. Miss Chance asked many questions.
"Dear Pamela," she cried, "I can't bear to think of it! How did you manage to lift him if his foot was injured?"
Pamela said she used her petticoat as a sort of sling.
"Petticoat--Oh!" gasped the Floweret horror-stricken, and pursued the matter no further in that direction. "We cannot be thankful enough that you are spared," she concluded.
"I gave him to the Ensors," went on Pamela, skating lightly over the interval. "Ensor was in the stack-yard--just going off to hunt--he'd never have found Reube, I'm certain. They sent off Joey to get Doctor Fraser--look there they come--I'm so glad."