“It is good to have such neighbours,” said the Squire. “And I hope you’ll get on, my dear. How came you to be at this place at all?”
“It was through Mr. Lockett,” she answered—the clergyman who had been so much with her husband before he died, and who had kept up a correspondence with her. Mr. Lockett’s brother was in practice as a doctor at Saltwater, and they thought she might perhaps do well if she came to it. So Mary’s friends had screwed a point or two to put her into the house, and gave her besides a ten-pound note to start with.
“I tell you what it is, young Joe: if you run and reve yourself into that scarlet heat, you shan’t come here with me again.”
“But I like to race with the donkeys,” replied young Joe. “I can run almost as fast as they, Johnny. I like to see the donkeys.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to ride a donkey, lad?”
He shook his head. “I have never had a ride but once,” he answered: “I’ve no sixpences for it. That once Matilda treated me. She brings me on the sands.”
“Who is Matilda?”
“Matilda at No. 7—Mr. Peahern’s.”
“Well, if you are a good boy, young Joe, and stay by me, you shall have a ride as soon as the donkeys come back.”
They were fine sands. I sat down on a bench with a book; little Joe strained his eyes to look after the donkeys in the distance, cantering off with some young shavers like himself on their backs, their nursemaids walking quickly after them. Poor little Joe!—he had the gentlest, meekest face in the world, with his thoughtful look and nice eyes—waited and watched in quiet patience. The sands were crowded with people this afternoon; organs were playing, dancing dolls exhibiting; and vessels with their white sails spread glided smoothly up and down on the sparkling sea.