‘Oh, it’s safe enough, Miss Rosa. I’ve been used to find my way about ever since I could walk. I’ve just come up from the marshes, and I was going to take these cockles to Mavis Farm to see if the master would like them for his breakfast to-morrow.’
‘I daresay they will be very glad of them. George and Bob are awfully fond of cockles. What a lot you’ve gathered, Lizzie. How do you manage to find them, when you can’t see?’
‘I know all the likeliest places they stick to, Miss Rosa, as well as I do the chimney corner at home. The tide comes up and leaves them on the bits of rocks, and among the boulders, and some spots are regular beds of them. I’ve been at it half my life, you see, miss, and I just feel for them with my fingers and pick them off. I can tell a piece of samphire, too, by the sound it makes as I tread over it.’
‘It’s wonderful,’ said Rosa; ‘I have often been surprised to see you go about just as though you had the use of your eyes. It seems to make no difference to you.’
Poor Lizzie sighed.
‘Oh, miss! it makes a vast difference—such a difference as you could never understand. But I try to make the best of it, and not be more of a burden upon aunt and Larry than I need to be.’
‘I’m sure they don’t think you a burden,’ said the other girl, warmly. ‘But I wonder I didn’t meet you on the marshes just now. I’ve been galloping all over them.’
‘Not past Corston Point, I hope, miss,’ exclaimed Lizzie, hurriedly.
‘Yes, I have! Why not?’
‘Oh, don’t go there again, Miss Rosa. It isn’t safe, particularly on horseback. There’s no end of quagmires beyond the Point, and you can never tell when you’ll come on one and be swallowed up, horse and all.’