“Yes, Miss Elizabeth. I—er—promised to join her. I must hasten back now, I am sorry to say.”
So did Mr. Willie Kirke prove himself to be a man and a brother as he skimmed back with a light step by the damp edge of the waves, and Andy remarked with heartfelt sincerity—
“Awfully good chap—the heart of a true gentleman.”
“And so marvellously versatile,” added Elizabeth.
Then they strolled slowly along until they encountered Sally, who had strayed from a group of children round a shallow pool and was searching the shore with her usual earnestness of purpose.
“I’m not looking for shells—I’m looking for money,” said Sally in a serious voice; and she disengaged herself from Elizabeth’s detaining hand to plod on again in a business-like manner.
“There’s no money on the sands, goosey,” said Elizabeth, kneeling down to bring her own bright head in a line with the little anxious face.
Sally looked at Elizabeth with that questioning gaze by which children try to separate truth from what are called jokes in a puzzling, grown-up world.
“I heard Miss Kirke telling mother there was heaps of pennies lost on the sands,” she said; “and mother doesn’t know how she’s ever going to keep me and Jimmy in boots—we kick them out so. She says we shall have to wear wooden ones like little foreign boys and girls, and I don’t w-want to. The others would s-shout us so!”
Poor little Sally’s voice broke at the prospect of such unpleasant notoriety, and Elizabeth put her arms round that dear, pitiful thing—a baby who has learned to think too soon.