"I'd love to have you, Adam, but you'd better go around by the shore. Meet me at father's. Good-bye."
And she was gone, swiftly. She always has some ill-concealed anxiety over these disappearances of Tidda's, and so, for that matter, have I. I got up slowly and started toward the head of that steep path to the shore; but stopped halfway, and turned and went to my shed, and got my hoe and my rubber boots. It was yet early in the season for clamming, but my way led past the clam beds, and the tide was almost down, and I might at least see how they were getting on. So, my hoe and my boots in my hand, I went down the steep path, and strode along the shore. And, as I came nearer that place which is ever near my heart—where the sod breaks off to the sand just above my clam beds—I thought I got a glimpse of drapery behind a tree-trunk. There are trees there, pretty near the edge of the three-foot bluff, the beginning of a grove which is Old Goodwin's; and a path runs back to his house. I saw that the gleam of white I had seen was from a white dress, a small white dress, a dress that somehow seemed familiar; and I saw a small leg in the air, its stocking in the process of removal. I stepped forward without caution, and I grinned down at my small daughter. It is impossible to be cross with her, she is always so perfectly confident of having done nothing which she should not have done.
So I grinned down at her, and she looked up and grinned back at me.
"Going in wading," she announced cheerfully, continuing to push the stocking, which did not seem to want to come off.
"Going wading, are you? Well, don't be in a hurry, Tidda. Let's talk it over."
She did not relax her efforts, but she shook her head.
"Haven't got time to talk now," she said. "Daddy, you help me get my stockings off. They won't un-come. They're an awful bother."
"Wait a minute." I stepped back and looked up at my bluff. There was Ann watching me, and evidently anxious. I signalled to her that Tidda was found—we have a code for the purpose, and Ann is letter-perfect in it—and she signalled that she was much relieved and would find Eve and tell her. Then she disappeared.