'I wonder who that is with father,' said Reggie; 'I can't see his face. He looks like a stranger. Father is always having people coming to talk to him now that he has been made a J.P.'
'Allan,' said Marjorie, 'before we go to your house, I think we had better go into Mrs. MacAlister's and get a scone or a piece of oat-cake for Tricksy. She has gone far too long without food. You're hungry, aren't you, Tricksy?'
Tricksy nodded. Her little dark face was very pale, and she was struggling with a vexatious desire to cry.
'She always will insist upon doing what the rest of us do, that child,' said Marjorie in an undertone to Hamish; and Hamish looked kindly at the youngest member of the band.
'She has no end of pluck, the little kid,' he aid.
'We'll go to Mrs. MacAlister's shop,' said Marjorie. 'I am sure she must be up by now, and we'll be able to get something.'
The young folks pattered along the unevenly paved streets of the little village, which had the sea on one side and grassy cliffs on the other.
'It's curious what a lot of people are about so early,' said Marjorie, as they passed some knots of men and women standing in corners and talking. 'I wonder whether there is anything unusual going on.'
The party stopped at the door of a small shop which had some cakes and jars of sweets in the window, and a post-box let into the wall.
'Here's Mrs. MacAlister's,' said Marjorie; 'she has her shop open very early.'