you tell us, Bertie, that you met the gentleman
yesterday?"

"Just at first I forgot. You remember when I went up for that
fishing-line and hooks, and Teddy said we might fish from the chain
pier; I found you all gone there, and I ran after you as fast as ever I
could. While we were fishing I forgot everything, though I caught
nothing, and then, when I did think of it, I thought perhaps you
wouldn't care to know that our cousins are here."

Bertie spoke quickly, with flushed cheeks, averted eyes, and a good deal
of confusion.

"Our Cousins Dick and Harry Gregory?" Eddie said quietly.

"Yes; they and aunt were with Mr. Murray; and he asked me ever such a
lot of questions and said the funniest things. Of course he never had
heard a word of poor papa's death, and how we had to leave Riversdale;
and how he did pucker his eyebrows over it! And when I said I was in
Uncle Gregory's office, and you were with Uncle Clair learning to be an
artist, you should see how he wrinkled his forehead and scowled! Then he
asked me how I came to be here, and I told him, and how near I came to
missing you all, and I wondered whatever I should have done if I had. He
said I might have had a very happy time with my cousins: gone in a yacht
to the Isle of Wight and round the Land's End; and I couldn't help
looking surprised. It showed how little _he_ knew of Aunt Gregory,
though he was with her; and then he said he'd call and see Uncle Clair,
and I forgot to tell him, and that's all. Let us go and have a swim,
Eddie, and perhaps Agnes will like to rest here for a while."

For answer, Eddie threw himself on the smooth pebbly beach, and hiding
his face on his folded arms, sobbed bitterly, wildly almost. Bertie
looked and listened in dumb, helpless amazement. Eddie crying! it seemed
absurd, impossible! The rough, hardy, resolute boy would not have cried
in such a place for anything, "not," he said afterwards, in confidence,
to Agnes, "not if he had a tooth pulled out!" and that, in Bertie's
idea, was the climax of human misery, the height of human endurance. But
Eddie's sobs continued for a long time without either Agnes or Bertie
attempting to offer any consolation, for the simple reason that they did
not know in the least what was the matter with him. Once, indeed, Agnes
ventured to ask timidly if he were ill, and the answer was such a rough
"No, leave me alone!" that she sat and looked at Bertie for what seemed
two hours, and was in reality