"I believe I was almost as much frightened as Dick," Miss Warren acknowledged.
"Well, you have both recovered from your fright now," the doctor remarked; "and I daresay last night's scene will never be enacted again. I am not going to take you with me this morning, Dick, because I am going to visit a patient who lives five miles distant, and may have to remain there some time."
"Perhaps Dick and I may spend our morning on the beach," Miss Warren suggested. "I could take my needlework with me, and Dick would find his own amusements."
"Oh, yes!" Dick agreed delightedly. "The tide will be out, and it's always nicer then!"
"Mind you do not fall on the rocks," Dr. Warren said warningly; "some of them are as slippery as glass, covered as they are with sea-weeds. Be careful—there's a good boy."
An hour later found Miss Warren and Dick wending their way to the sea-shore. The latter carried a camp-stool which, upon their arrival on the beach, he set up in the shade of a rock for his aunt to sit upon.
"Now, my dear," said Miss Warren, as she took her seat and proceeded to unfold a parcel of plain needlework which she had brought with her, "you need not stay with me, you know; only keep within sight and I shall be easy in my mind about you."
"All right, Aunt Mary Ann; I will," Dick answered, truly meaning what he said.
He ran off towards the edge of the water, Miss Warren glancing after him with a bright smile. She had grown to love her little nephew very dearly; he added to the happiness of her life, and she was quite grateful to his grandfather for having declined to take charge of him.
"How we should miss him if he left us!" she reflected. "I do not believe his parents would allow Sir Richard to have him now! Theophilus says he believes the old man is growing really to like the boy. Oh, I hope he will never want to take him away from us! Good gracious!"