ed staying indoors near the fire to coming with us
over the rocks and sailing Jack's boat in mid-December.

He little knew the pleasure he missed, of course! Happily, he did not
insist on our staying indoors with him, and the consequence was we
managed to do pretty much as we liked, and indeed rather more so than he
or any one else interested in our welfare supposed.

Kingstairs, as any one who has been there knows, is not a very exciting
place at the best of times. In summer, however, it is a pleasant enough
retreat, where family parties come down from town for a week or so, and
spend their days boating in the pretty bay, or else basking on the sands
under the chalk cliffs, where the children construct fearful and
wonderful pits and castles, and arm-chairs for their mothers to sit in,
or canals and ponds in which to sail their craft. In fine weather
nothing is so enjoyable as a day on the rocks, hunting for crabs and
groping for "pungars," or else strolling about on the jetty to watch the
packet-boat go out to meet the steamer, or see the luggers coming in
after a week's fishing cruise in the German Ocean.

All this is pleasant enough. But Kingstairs in July and Kingstairs in
December are two different places.

The lodging-houses were all desolate and deserted. The boats were all
drawn high and dry up on the jetty. The bathing-machines stood dismally
in the field behind the town. Not a soul sat in an arm-chair on the
sands from morning to night. No one walked along the cliffs except the
coastguardsmen. The London steamer had given up running, and no one was
to be seen on the jetty but an occasional sailor, pipe in mouth and
hands in pockets, looking the picture of dismalness.

You may fancy Jack and I, under these depressing circumstances, soon got
tired of sailing the boat. And when one day, after we had waited a week
for the water to calm down, we started it, with all sail crowded, before
half a gale of wind, from the jetty steps, and watched it heel over on
to one side and next moment disappear under the foam of a great wave
which nearly carried us off our feet where we stood, we decided there
was not much fun to be had out of Kingstairs in December.

It was often so rough and stormy that it was impossible to get to the
end of the jetty; and on these occasions we were well enough pleased to
take shelter in the "look-out," a big room over the net-house, reached
by a ladder, where there was generally a