ng-rope, finding she could not gain her point, gave herself a
spiteful wriggle, which nearly tore off the grand tassel at the end of
the Kite's tail, and set off full gallop in her recital, leaving him no
breathing time to complain:--

"I began life," said she, "as a mere length of rope, although I only
form now a small portion of the coil to which I belonged. I was the
property of a poor fisherman, who lived in a hut belonging to a cluster
of storm-beaten cots, called by great courtesy, the 'village' of
Rocksand, in Devonshire. All the people who lived there were very poor,
and gained a precarious living by fishing, while their wives occupied
the spare time left after "keeping house, and minding the childer," by
cultivating the very small bits of garden ground that belonged to them,
and which were situated on the top of a very lofty cliff, some height
above the nestling cottages which were huddled under its shelter on the
shore, not so very far above the high tide line. Indeed, in stormy
weather, the rough seas which churned up the restless pebbles on the
beach, sent their waves in very adverse weather, and during winds that
set dead in shore, into somewhat disagreeable nearness to the doorsteps!
And as for the spray, well! in storms it put out the fires, by falling
down the low wide chimneys, but in ordinary weather people never minded
it.

"As for the children, they were like little ducklings, and directly they
were big they took to the water like young Newfoundland puppies; and
while they were too small for that, they played in it, and made "sand
pies," for there was no mud there, and became dirty and draggled, and
therefore happy to their heart's content. And a rare hardy, ruddy set
they were, living on the very scantiest and coarsest fare, and thriving
on the salt fresh breezes, like young giants, as they were. My owner was
a tall, strong young man, who supported his wife and two little ones by
his own incessant hard work. He was a capital climber too, and was very
fond of scrambling about the face of the cliff in almost inaccessible
places for birds' nests and eggs, of which he had quite a large
collection. He used to blow and preserve the eggs, replace them in their
pretty and curious nests, and then offer them for sale in the
neighbouring town. He also collected the samphire growing on the rocky
masses that jutted out into the sea, and for which his wife found a
ready sale in the town market. They were frugal,