f she was
straightened--I mean if she could stand up beside o' you. I guess
you better go to that woman in the cap or she'll scold, won't she?"

"Goodness, yes! Elise always scolds. But I'd rather be scolded than
not hear about that little Blossom girl--"

"Mademoiselle!" called the woman in the cap sharply. She came up
puffing with her hurry. "Mademoiselle has escape again--Mademoiselle
is ba-ad!" she scolded.

"I didn't ex-scape, either--I only walked. You don't walk when you
ex-scape. You sat and sat and sat, and I wanted to walk."

The child's voice was full of grievance. Sometimes she dreaded
Elise--when she saw her coming down the beach--but she was never
afraid of her "near to."

"But it is not for Mademoiselle to walk so far--what is it the doctor
say? Mademoiselle is ba-ad when she walk so far!"

With a sudden gesture of defiance the Dainty One sprang away across
the sand, looking over her shoulder willfully. "But it's so good to
walk!" she cried. "You'd walk if you was me, Elise--you'd walk and
walk and walk! Like this--see me! See me run--like this!"

The eyes of the woman in the white nurse's cap met for an instant the
eyes of the boy-girl in the oilskins, and Judith smiled. But Elise
was gravely tender--Elise's face could undergo swift changes, too.

"Yes, certainment I would," muttered Elise, looking away to the
naughty little figure. It was running back now.

"And then you'd be goody again--see me!" chanted the child. "And
you'd go right straight back to Elise--that would be _me_, if you
were I--and you'd put your arms round her, so, and say, ''Scuse
me,'--hear me!"

Judith Lynn got into the old brown dory and rowed away to her
lobster-traps. There was no laughter any more in her eyes; they were
fierce with longing and envy. Not for herself--Judith was sixteen,
but she had never been fierce or envious for herself. It had always
been--it would always be--for Blossom, the frail little wisp of a
girl she loved.

She was thinking intensely, What if that were Blossom, running down
the beach? They were about of a "tallness"--why shouldn't it be
Blossom? Why shouldn't Blossom run down the beach like that and call
"See me!"

She would walk and walk and walk--it would feel so good to walk!
Once she had said to Judith--the great oars stopped as Judith
remembered--once Blossom had said, "Oh, Judy, if I ever walk, I
shall walk right across the sea. You couldn't stop me!"

But Blossom would never wal