sunny, wind-swept hill-top; her silk skirt carefully tucked up, and the embroidered frill of her starched white petticoat just resting on her sturdy, well-shod feet. One plump hand, in its tight kid glove, toying with her posy of roses and "old man," the other absently tapping John's discarded foot-gear. Her eyes followed the movements of the lithe young form that wandered hither and thither on the sandy expanse below; her lips were parted in a smile of idle content. All at once a shadow fell across her, and, looking up, she beheld the strange cockle girl standing beside her with folded arms. Jinny stared at her for a moment in astonishment from under the brim of her fine befeathered hat: 

 "Have ye got any cockles to-day?" she inquired at length. 

 "Nay, I haven't," responded the girl rudely; "an' if I had you shouldn't ha' none." 

 "My word!" exclaimed Jinny angrily, "ye might as well keep a civil tongue i' your 'ead. I don't want none o' your cockles, as it jest falls out—my 'usband's gone to get me some." 

 "Your 'usband," repeated the girl, clapping her hands together in what Jinny thought a very odd and uncalled-for way. "Your 'usband!" 

 Jinny felt very uncomfortable; the girl's demeanour was so strange that she began to think she had been drinking. Hastily collecting John's socks and boots she scrambled to her feet. 

 "He's gone cocklin', has he?" inquired Sally, fixing those queer blue eyes of hers on the wife's face with an extraordinary expression; "an' you're takkin' care o's shoon till he cooms back? Ha! ha!—happen he'll ne'er coom back." 

 Jinny turned very red and walked indignantly away; most certainly the girl was either mad or drunk. "Happen he'll ne'er coom back," indeed! Such impudence! Jinny did not quite like being left alone with her in that solitary place, and partly on this account, partly to disprove her ridiculous assertion, bent her steps towards the shore, calling loudly to her husband to return. 

 But a fresh breeze was blowing, and the waves were leaping shoreward with unusual haste and energy; her voice did not reach him, and he wandered still further away from her, stooping ever and anon to examine the sand. He had crossed the river some time before, and was now pacing the opposite shore. The muddy waters of this little tidal river had been shallow enough for him to wade through not half-an-hour previously, but were now rising rapidly. He would find his return difficult if not dangerous, 

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