It was more tiring work than she had expected. Before they got to the top of the bank Alie had decided that they would have done better to remain where they were, on the smooth firm sand down below, but once at the top she changed again. What fun can be more delightful than playing in sand-hills, jumping from a miniature summit to the valley beneath with no fear of hurting one's self even if one comes to grief and rolls ignominiously as far as one can go! How helplessly one wades in the shifting, unstable footing—tumbling over with a touch, like a house built of cards! The children's laughter sounded merrily in the clear cold air; Bridget plunged about like a little porpoise in the water, and Rosalys quite forgot that she had attained the dignity of her teens.
But a bell ringing suddenly some little way off caught their ears.
'That's papa ringing,' said Randolph. 'He said he'd have the big dinner-bell rung when it was time for me to go in. I'm going to walk to the town or the village, or whatever it is, with him. Good-bye, girls. It's only three o'clock—you can stay another half-hour,' and off he ran.
'Let's go down to the shore again,' said Alie. 'Mamma said perhaps she'd come out a little, and she'd never see us up here.'
Bridget hung back a little.
'I daresay she won't come out,' she said. 'Do stay up here, Alie. If mamma comes out she'll only talk to you and I'll be all alone. I don't want her.'
'Oh, Bride, that's not nice. I'm sure mamma likes to talk to you too, only you see I'm older, and there's often things you wouldn't understand about perhaps, and——'
'I know—it's always the same. I'm too little to be any use. I know you're older and sensibler, and I don't mean that mamma's not kind. But families should be settled better—and—oh, Alie, I have so torn my frock, and it's my afternoon one—my new merino.'
