'Oh, I will—I will!' said Nan eagerly, quite forgetting what her mother might have to say about this strange acquaintance. 'But what has made you take to such a way of living? You are very well educated.'
'You are kind to say so, Miss,' remarked Singing Sal, who was evidently greatly pleased. 'But it's little education I ever got, except from two or three books I have made companions of, like. I kept my father's shop in Tunbridge until he married a second time; then it grew too hot for me, rather; and so I took to the road, and I've never regretted it. Human nature is what I like to look at; and if I may make so bold as to say it, I guess there's more human nature among the poor folk than among the rich. But I'll tell you about that some other time,' she added, returning to her ordinary free-and-easy manner. 'I see you want to go. You've looked at your watch twice.'
'But you're going to Brighton also?' said Nan, somewhat timidly.
'Not with you, Miss,' was the prompt reply. 'No, no. But perhaps, if it is not making too free, you will be so friendly as to tell me your name?'
'My name is Anne Beresford, and I live in Brunswick Terrace,' said Nan.
'Thank ye kindly, Miss,' said Singing Sal, regarding the young lady with great friendliness and respect. 'Maybe I shall see you some other day on the downs, for I think you are as fond of them as I am myself. Good-bye, Miss.'
She rose with some sense of natural courtesy. But she rather turned away, also; and she kept her hands behind her. So Nan bade her good-bye in return; and continued on her way along the lonely cliffs.
Some considerable time thereafter, when Nan Beresford was nearing Brighton, she turned and looked behind her; and she could make out, on the summit of one of the rounded undulations towards Rottingdean, the figure of a woman, whom she at once guessed to be Singing Sal. That solitary figure was impressive there—high up on the edge of the slope; the still, shining sea far below her; and all around her and illumining her, as it were, the reddening glow flooding over from the westering sun. Nan—perhaps moved by some subtle compunction, perhaps only in token of friendly remembrance—took out her handkerchief and waved it twice; but there was no response.