r we'd come all that long way
those lazy people were still asleep!'

'Yes,' piped Tricksy; 'at four in the morning we were wakened by having
pebbles thrown up at our windows, and we had to get up and dress in a
brace of shakes.' (Reggie's face darkened. Tricksy was fond of using
slang picked up from her brothers, and he felt it his duty to
disapprove.) 'Then we didn't know what to do to fill up the time, so
we went to Neil's mother's cottage, and Reggie knocked at Neil's
window, so that he came out to see what was the matter; and we all went
egg-gathering on the rocks.'

'Where's father?' said Allan suddenly; he has been left behind.'

'Go on--all of you!' called Mr. Stewart, who was engaged in talking to
a respectably dressed man on the pier; 'don't wait for me.--Take Hamish
and Marjorie home, Allan, and give them some breakfast, and tell your
mother I shan't be long.'

'I wonder who that is with father,' said Reggie; 'I can't see his face.
He looks like a stranger. Father is always having people coming to
talk to him now that he has been made a J.P.'

'Allan,' said Marjorie, 'before we go to your house, I think we had
better go into Mrs. MacAlister's and get a scone or a piece of oat-cake
for Tricksy. She has gone far too long without food. You're hungry,
aren't you, Tricksy?'

Tricksy nodded. Her little dark face was very pale, and she was
struggling with a vexatious desire to cry.

'She always _will_ insist upon doing what the rest of us do, that
child,' said Marjorie in an undertone to Hamish; and Hamish looked
kindly at the youngest member of the band.

'She has no end of pluck, the little kid,' he aid.

'We'll go to Mrs. MacAlister's shop,' said Marjorie. 'I am sure she
must be up by now, and we'll be able to get something.'

The young folks pattered along the unevenly paved streets of the little
village, which had the sea on one side and grassy cliffs on the other.

'It's curious what a lot of people are about so early,' said Marjorie,
as they passed some knots of men and women standing in corners and
talking. 'I wonder whether there is anything unusual going on.'

The party stopped at the door of a small shop which had some cakes and
jars of sweets in the window, and a post-box let into the wall.

'Here's Mrs. MacAlister's,' said Marjorie; 'she has her shop open very
early.'

The little place was in confusion. The shutters were down, but the
shop had not been tidied, and Mrs. MacAlist