he very apple of
his eye, as the holy Psalmist says. And, knowing the obstinacy of them
both, I dreaded clash between them.

CHAPTER XXXI

ADRIFT

Having got money enough to last long with one brought up to simplicity,
and resolved to have nothing to do for a while with charity or furnished
lodgings (what though kept by one's own nurse), I cast about now for
good reason to be off from all the busy works at Bruntsea. So soon after
such a tremendous blow, it was impossible for me to push my own little
troubles and concerns upon good Mr. Shovelin's family, much as I longed
to know what was to become of my father's will, if any thing. But my
desire to be doing something, or, at least, to get away for a time
from Bruntsea, was largely increased by Sir Montague Hockin's strange
behavior toward me.

That young man, if still he could be called young--which, at my age,
scarcely seemed to be his right, for he must have been ten years older
than poor Firm--began more and more every day to come after me, just
when I wanted to be quite alone. There was nothing more soothing to my
thoughts and mind (the latter getting quiet from the former, I suppose)
than for the whole of me to rest a while in such a little scollop of
the shingle as a new-moon tide, in little crescents, leaves just below
high-water mark. And now it was new-moon tide again, a fortnight after
the flooding of our fly by the activity of the full moon; and, feeling
how I longed to understand these things--which seem to be denied to all
who are of the same sex as the moon herself--I sat in a very nice nick,
where no wind could make me look worse than nature willed. But of my own
looks I never did think twice, unless there was any one to speak of such
a subject.

Here I was sitting in the afternoon of a gentle July day, wondering by
what energy of nature all these countless pebbles were produced, and not
even a couple to be found among them fit to lie side by side and purely
tally with each other. Right and left, for miles and miles, millions
multiplied into millions; yet I might hold any one in my palm and be
sure that it never had been there before. And of the quiet wavelets
even, taking their own time and manner, in default of will of wind,
all to come and call attention to their doom by arching over, and
endeavoring to make froth, were any two in sound and size, much more
in shape and shade, alike? Every one had its own little business, of
floating pop-wee