ad left them, a small
figure--a speck, almost--on the sandy beach, about three furlongs away.

He was engaged at the moment in adding up a column of figures.
Having entered the total, he looked up again, laid down his pen, frowned
with annoyance, and picked up an old pair of field-glasses that stood
ready to hand on the sill of his desk beside the ink-well. He glanced at
the clock on his chimney-piece before throwing up the window-sash.

The hour was eleven--five minutes after eleven, to be exact; the month
April; the day sunny, with a humming northerly wind; the tide drawing far
out towards low-ebb, and the air so clear that the small figure standing
on the edge of the waves could not be mistaken.

As he threw up the sash Elder Penno caught sight of Tom Hancock, the
school attendance officer, lounging against a post on the quay below.

"You're the very man I want," said the Elder. "Isn't that Tregenza's
grandchild over yonder?"

"Looks like her," said the A.O., withdrawing a short clay pipe from his
mouth, and spitting.

"Then why isn't she at school at this hour?"

"'Tis a hopeless case, if you ask me." The A.O. announced this with a
fine air of resignation. His pay was 2s. 6d. a week, and he never erred
on the side of zeal.

"Better fit you was lookin' up such cases than idlin' here and wastin'
baccy. That's if you ask _me_," retorted the Elder.

"I've a-talked to the maid, an' I've a-talked to her gran'father, till I'm
tired," said Hancock, and spat again. "She'll be fourteen next May, an'
then we can wash our hands of her."

"A nice look-out it'd be if the eddication of England was left in your
hands," said the Elder truthfully, if obviously.

"You can't do nothin' with her." The A.O. was used to censure and wasted
no resentment on it. "Nothin'. I give 'ee leave to try."

The Elder stood for a moment watching the small figure across the sands.
Then, with a snort of outraged propriety, he closed the window, reached
down his hat from its peg, marched out of his office--through the shop--
and forth upon the sunny quay. A flight of stone stairs led down to the
bed of the harbour, now deserted by the tide; and across this, picking his
way among the boats and their moorings, he made for the beach where the
sea broke and glittered on the firm sand in long curves of white.

A tonic northerly breeze was blowing, just strongly enough to lift the
breakers in blue-green hollows against the sunshine and