noise was deafening and Mrs. Ensor was shaking the baby--as an example to its brothers of what happens when people are naughty enough to fall over a pig. "Mother," urged Reube Ensor, who was six, and very small, "here be Master Hughie." The tumult ceased as by magic, and Mrs. Ensor advanced to meet her visitor, with the baby surprised into silence. Hughie shook hands politely. Then he asked if his sister had just been to the farm. "I thought I saw her," he explained, "she was in the road, and I thought she might have come up for eggs." This idea had occurred to him when he saw the hen-coops as a very possible explanation for Pamela’s conduct. Her gesture to him might have meant that she was going on to Clawtol Farm in a hurry. Mrs. Ensor had not seen anybody. Miss Pamela had not called for eggs. She turned to the row of listening little boys and demanded of them, "had anybody seen Miss Pamela?" There was a certain amount of whispering and nudging, from which the farmer’s wife seemed to gather that Pamela had been seen. It was "young Reube" who volunteered information, twisting his cap round and round in very small nervous hands. Hughie looked at him with shy sympathy. He liked Reube, but could not explain why. "Did you see my sister?" he asked gravely. "Yes, I seen the young lady," admitted Reube. "Where did she go?" asked Hughie again. "She went down along Crown Hill. She was running." That was all Reube said, or knew apparently. As he gave this answer he looked from Hughie to his mother with a puzzled expression which neither interpreted to mean anything but shyness. "I think I’d better go home now, Mrs. Ensor," said the visitor rather ceremoniously. "I shall be rather late for our tea, shan’t I? I expect my sister has gone to Crown Hill to see Miss Ashington, so I shan’t go that way--it’s much longer." Mrs. Ensor and family--with an inquisitive escort of chickens and little pigs--came to the gate with Hughie and let him out. "Good-night, Mrs. Ensor," said Hughie, and lifted his cap with precision. Young Reube stood in the background with a troubled expression on his small dark face. After Hughie was gone he ran about and drove chickens into coops, but all the while there was a sense of confusion in his mind, because he had no power to explain--words do not come easily when you are six! Hughie raced back along the road to the top of Hawksdown. From there it was not very far to the drop of the hill down into Bell Bay. At a turn he came in full view of the lovely cove, and paused to look for the white yawl. There she was on her moorings. Sails stowed too, and he could see someone getting out of the dinghy on to the big flat rock where they usually landed. There was not enough light for him to distinguish persons, but seeing the _Messenger_ was safely 

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