“Nobody know’d I’d got ’em; I always kep’ ’em inside my shirt, wrapt up in a bit of paper, and when I put on me tights I used to hide ’em. I’m a-going to take the road one of these days, and find out who it was lost a kid with blue shoes and shirt nine years come April.”
“Then you’re ten and a half,” said Mavis.
And the boy answered admiringly:
“How do you do it in your head so quick, miss? Yes, that’s what I am.”
Here the wheelbarrow resumed its rather bumpety progress, and nothing more could be said till the next stoppage, which was at that spot where the sea-front road swings around and down, and glides into the beach so gently that you can hardly tell where one begins and the other ends. It was much lighter there than up on the waste space. The moon was just breaking through a fluffy white cloud and cast a trembling sort of reflection on the sea. As they came down the slope all hands were needed to steady the barrow, because as soon as she saw the sea the Mermaid began to jump up and down like a small child at a Christmas tree.
“Oh, look!” she cried, “isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t it the only home in the world?”
“Not quite,” said the boy.
“Ah!” said the lady in the barrow, “Of course you’re heir to one of the—what is it...?”
“‘Stately homes of England—how beautiful they stand,’” said Mavis.