A storm broke upon Clarice when she went home to her mother. She bore the blame of her idleness with tolerable patience, until it seemed as if the gale would never blow over. At last some quick words escaped her:—
"Three bushels of weed lie there on the boards ready spread, and drying.
I gathered them before another creature was stirring in Diver's Bay."
Then she added, more gently, "I found something besides."
But though Dame Briton heard, she passed this last bit of information without remark.
"Idling down there on the beach to see the boys off fishing!" she could not help saying. "You needn't be up afore the break o' day for work like that."
"It was Luke Merlyn."
"No matter."
"I showed him what I had found. Ask him if I'm ever too free. He'd know as quick as anybody,—and care as much."
Clarice, while speaking this, had departed yet farther both in look and voice from her usual serenity.
The dame let her last words pass without taking them up. She was by this time curious.
"What did you find?" asked she.