They came a little solemnly, as beseemed a festival. Janet, in her long white pinafore, looked more than ever the spiritual thing she was. Her long brown hair hung down her cheeks, straight and smooth as a parted veil, sharpening her small face, that flickered as a flame flickers in troubled air. Beside her little Barbara bloomed and glowed, with cheeks full-blown, and cropped head flowering into curls that stood on end in brown tufts, and tawny feathers, and little crests of gold. They took their places, pensively, at the table.
They had beautiful manners, Robert's children; little exquisite, gentle ways of approaching and of handling things. They held themselves very erect, with a secure, diminutive distinction. Kitty's heart sank deeper as she looked at them. Even Barbara, who was so very young, carried her small perfections intact through all the spontaneities of her behaviour.
All through tea-time little Barbara, pursued by her dream, talked incessantly of castles in the sand. And when she was tired of talking she began to sing.
"Darling," said Jane, "we don't sing at tea-time."
"I do," said little Barbara, and laughed.
Jane laughed too, hysterically.
Then the spirit of little Barbara entered into Jane, and made her ungovernably gay. It passed into Kitty, and ran riot in her blood and nerves. Whenever Barbara laughed Kitty laughed, and when Kitty laughed Robert laughed too. Even Janet gave a little shriek now and then. The children thought it was all because they had had strawberries and cream for tea, and were going down to the sea to build castles in the sand.
All afternoon, till dinner-time, Kitty laboured on the sands, building castles as if she had never done anything else in her life. The Hankins watched her from their seat on the rocks in the angle of the Cliff.
"We were mistaken. She must be all right. How pretty she is, too, poor thing," said Mrs. Hankin to her husband.
"How pretty she is, how absolutely lovable and good," said Robert to himself as he watched her, while Barbara, a tired little labourer, lay stretched in her lap. She was sitting on a rock under the Cliff, with the great brow of it for a canopy. Her eyes were lowered, and hidden by their deep lids. She was smiling at the child who leaned back in her arms, crushing a soft cheek against her breast.