Old Molly laughed.
“Oh, indeed, my dear; Johnnie’s been up this hour and more forbye.”
The tide was far back this morning, and there was not a breath of air to stir the surface of the sleeping sea. It was one vast sheet of leaden gray, with a haze on the horizon, through which a ship or two was looming. Long strips of blackest rock, shaped like needles, jutted out seawards, and on their extreme points the waves broke lazily. Great stretches of yellow sand lay between. At the very end of one of these rocky capes a figure no larger a pigeon could be seen moving about, very actively indeed.
“Yonder’s Johnnie,” said Molly.
“I’m going to him, Molly. Come, Ralph.”
The dog bayed, and went bounding round his little mistress. Even Johnnie on the rock point could hear that deep-mouthed sound and knew that his cousin Peggy was coming, and next minute both she and the hound were seen feathering across the sands in his direction. The boy’s handsome face brightened when he saw his child companion.
“I somehow knew you would come this morning, Peggy.”
“Yes?” said the girl, inquiringly.
“Yes, I knew you wouldn’t go to the forest again to-day, after yesterday.”
“Oh, but I might!” she answered, mischievously. “You know I’m always going to take Ralph with me now.”