arms of the moving people, saw it first, and told the
blind old man it was still above water.

'A watched pot,' said he, 'ne'er boils, I reckon. It's ta'en a vast
o' watter t' cover that stone to-day. Anyhow, I'll have time to go
home and rate my missus for worritin' hersen, as I'll be bound she's
done, for all as I bade her not, but to keep easy and content.'

'We'd better be off too,' said Molly, as an opening was made through
the press to let out the groping old man. 'Eggs and butter is yet to
sell, and tha' cloak to be bought.'

'Well, I suppose we had!' said Sylvia, rather regretfully; for,
though all the way into Monkshaven her head had been full of the
purchase of this cloak, yet she was of that impressible nature that
takes the tone of feeling from those surrounding; and though she
knew no one on board the Resolution, she was just as anxious for the
moment to see her come into harbour as any one in the crowd who had
a dear relation on board. So she turned reluctantly to follow the
more prudent Molly along the quay back to the Butter Cross.

It was a pretty scene, though it was too familiar to the eyes of all
who then saw it for them to notice its beauty. The sun was low
enough in the west to turn the mist that filled the distant valley
of the river into golden haze. Above, on either bank of the Dee,
there lay the moorland heights swelling one behind the other; the
nearer, russet brown with the tints of the fading bracken; the more
distant, gray and dim against the rich autumnal sky. The red and
fluted tiles of the gabled houses rose in crowded irregularity on
one side of the river, while the newer suburb was built in more
orderly and less picturesque fashion on the opposite cliff. The
river itself was swelling and chafing with the incoming tide till
its vexed waters rushed over the very feet of the watching crowd on
the staithes, as the great sea waves encroached more and more every
minute. The quay-side was unsavourily ornamented with glittering
fish-scales, for the hauls of fish were cleansed in the open air,
and no sanitary arrangements existed for sweeping away any of the
relics of this operation.

The fresh salt breeze was bringing up the lashing, leaping tide from
the blue sea beyond the bar. Behind the returning girls there rocked
the white-sailed ship, as if she were all alive with eagerness for
her anchors to be heaved.

How impatient her crew of beating hearts were for that moment, how
those o