nd that she hoped I would not go
junketting in a hurry, else she would require to go with me herself.
There was no time to tell her all the story of our visit to Mrs. Berkley
that night, because a woman came in asking her to go down to the village
to see a sick man who had wandered there that day, and had been found
lying under a hedge by a field-worker. Then, as it was close to my
bed-hour, and I was very tired, Dolly carried me off to my room at once,
and when she had seen me safely in bed, went away. The next morning
while at breakfast she told me the sick man was apparently a fisherman,
but he was so weak he could not give an account of himself. Once or
twice he had suddenly become uneasy in his sleep, and had moaned out a
name some of the women thought was Polly, but so faintly, that they
could not be sure even of that.

"'Oh, it must be Polly's father come to life again,' I cried, starting
up and knocking over my basin of milk upon the clean white table-cover.
'Oh, do let me run and tell uncle about it, Dolly; he will know what
ought to be done.'

[Illustration: OVERTAKEN BY THE STORM.]

"Uncle John did not like to be disturbed in the morning, but this was an
extra case, and after Dolly had heard of the sufferings poor Polly had
to endure from her cruel step-mother, she allowed me to go to the study
door and tap gently. Uncle John listened very attentively to the story
about us meeting the three little girls on the beach, and at once agreed
to set out to inquire for the sick man; and proposed, if he was still
too weak to answer questions, to go on to the Bluff Crag, and get one of
the fishermen from there to come up to look at him. Fortunately, when my
uncle arrived the sick man was much better, and though only able to
speak a word at a time, understood all the questions that were put to
him. It soon became evident that this was indeed Polly's long-lost
father. When he was a little stronger he told how the boat that fearful
night had drifted away along the coast, and how it at last was dashed up
on the rocky beach, and how he had been thrown out into a sort of cave,
where there was barely standing room when the tide was full, and how he
had lived for days on the shell-fish that he found sticking to the side
of the cave, or the eggs he found on the shelves of rock; and at last,
when even this scanty supply failed him, and he was nearly mad from the
want of water, how he had dashed himself into the sea, determined