ecessities to the
boats. It was up with the flag on every boat in commission, for the
fishing, and this day's last preparations excited the place as if it
were some great national holiday. The women were equally full of
joyful business. They had to cook the breakfast, but immediately after
it were all in the packing and curing sheds. You would have been sure
they were keeping holiday. Pleasant greetings, snatches of song,
encouraging cries to the men struggling down to the boats with the
leaded nets, shouts of hurry to the bewildered children, little
flytings at their delays, O twenty different motives for clamor and
haste were rife, and not unpleasant, because through all there was
that tone of equal interest and good fellowship that can never be
mistaken.

Margot had insisted on a visit to her special shed, to see whether all
was in readiness for her special labor, but Christine had entreated
her to wait for her return from the town, where she was going for
orders. She had left her mother with the clear understanding that she
would not risk the walk and the chatter and the clatter until the
following day. But as soon as she was alone, Margot changed her
intentions. "I must make the effort," she said to herself. "I'm feared
of the pain, that's all about it." So she made the effort, and found
out that there was something more than fear to be reckoned with.

Christine brought home astonishing orders, and Margot's face flushed
with pride and energy. "I'll not let that order slip through my
fingers," she cried, "I'm going to the kippering, and what I canna do,
Christine can manage, following my say-so."

This change in Margot's work was the only shadow on that year's
herring-tide. It was a change, however, that all felt would not be
removed. Margot said, with a little laugh, that she was teaching her
lassie how to make a living, or how to help some gudeman to do it.
"And I have a fine scholar," she soon began to add. "Christine can now
kipper a herring as weel as her mother, and why not? She has seen the
kippering done, ever since she wore ankle tights."

"And you will be glad of a bit rest to yourself, Margot, no doubt,"
was the general answer.

"Ay, I have turned the corner of womanhood, and I'm wearing away down
the hillside of life. I hae been in a dowie and desponding condition
for a year or mair."

"Christine is clever with business, and folks do say she has a full
sense of the value of money."

"To be sure