"We thread them and make necklaces," Prudence explained; "they are so thin that you can stick a needle through them quite easily; they come in beds like this all along the beach. There are lots of lovely shells here, and sea-eggs too. We collect them sometimes, but our collections have such a way of getting lost somehow, they are always beginning over again and ending too soon."
"Can you say 'She sells sea-shells' twenty times running, as fast as lightning?" asked Grizzel.
"Not running as fast as lightning," Mollie answered, "but I could say it if I were walking rather slowly."
"I couldn't," said Grizzel, taking no notice of Mollie's flippancy, "if
I were to crawl at the rate of half an inch a year I should be saying
'She shells sea-shells' the whole time."
"You are talking nonsense," said Prudence. "Come up and see Papa and
Mamma."
Mollie was greeted kindly by the older people. She had forgotten to ask if she was supposed to be a visitor or only spending the day with the Campbells, but gathered from Mamma's conversation that she was paying a visit and had arrived that morning. She wondered again how they heard about her coming; the children appeared to take her for granted, but, of course, they knew she was a Time-traveller!
As the girls sat by their elders, idly playing with the silvery sand and chatting to each other, a large steamship came in view, coming from the north and heading south-west. They all stopped working and talking as they watched her steaming along, a trail of smoke blowing behind her, smudging the blue sky with clouds, black at first and gradually fading to grey.
"That's the English mail," Papa said at last; "she was due to leave the
Semaphore at three o'clock to-day."
They were silent again; the great ship drew nearer—now she was almost opposite.
"Oh—John—Home!" Mamma said. There was a tremble in her voice that made Prudence and Mollie look up—there were tears in her eyes.