"Oh, she's a rum 'un," said Coomber. "Well, now, are you ready, little 'un?" he asked.
Tiny looked up wistfully in the old woman's face. "Couldn't I take this home, and show it to Dick?" she asked, timidly, laying her hand on the print.
"Take my picture home!" exclaimed the old woman.
Coomber turned the paper over, and looked at it contemptuously. "Peters got this when he went to Grimsby, I s'pose?" he said.
"Yes, he did."
"Well now, couldn't you let her have it, and let Peters bring you another?" said the fisherman, who was anxious that his darling should be gratified if possible.
But the old woman was little more than a child herself over this picture, and was unwilling to part with it at first. At last she agreed to sell it to Tiny for a basket of samphire, for this seaweed made a kind of pickle among the fisher-folk, and was of some marketable value, too, for it did not grow everywhere along the coast, although round Bermuda Point it flourished in great luxuriance.
Tiny was only too glad to obtain such a treasure on such easy terms, although she was paying about five times the value of it; and when it had been folded up and carefully stowed away in Coomber's pocket, she was quite ready to go to the boat, although Dame Peters pressed them to stay and have some of the hot potatoes for supper.
Tiny seemed brimful of joy that night; and when she was seated in the boat, and they were rowing over the placid water, she so far forgot her fears as to begin singing. Something in the surroundings had recalled to her mind the time when she used to sing nearly every night her mother's favourite hymn. It all came back to her as freshly as though she had sung it only last week; and her sweet young voice rang out bold and clear—
"Star of Peace to wanderers weary,
Bright the beams that smile on me;
Cheer the pilot's vision dreary,
Far, far at sea."