With this encouraging statement the little girl devoted herself to the alternate consumption of gooseberries and cockles.
All things come to those who wait, and to us arrived at length the gig of the Eileen Oge, and such, by this time, were the temperature and the smells of the quay that I actually welcomed the moment that found us leaving it for the yacht.
"Now, Sinclair, aren't you glad we came?" remarked Philippa, as the clear green water deepened under us, and a light briny air came coolly round us with the motion of the boat.
As she spoke, there was an outburst of screams from the children on the quay, followed by a heavy splash.
"Oh stop!" cried Philippa in an agony; "one of them has fallen in! I can see its poor little brown head!"
"'Tis a dog, ma'am," said briefly the man who was rowing stroke.
"One might have wished it had been that little girl," said I, as I steered to the best of my ability for the yacht.
We had traversed another twenty yards or so, when Philippa, in a voice in which horror and triumph were strangely blended, exclaimed, "She's following us!"
"Who? The little girl?" I asked callously.
"No," returned Philippa; "worse."