ed to drop off into a doze.

The boys were startled, and Mrs. Coomber looked down hastily at the
little form on her lap, for this was the first intimation they had had
that the child could talk, although Mrs. Coomber fancied that she had
showed some signs of recognising her during the previous day.

"I say, did you hear that?" whispered Dick. "Was she saying her prayers,
mother, like Harry Hayes does?"

Mrs. Coomber nodded, while she looked down into the child's face and
moved her gently to and fro to soothe her to sleep.

"But, mother, ought she to say that? Did you hear her? She said 'dear
God,'" said Dick, creeping round to his mother's side.

Mrs. Coomber was puzzled herself at the child's words. They had awakened
in her a far-off memory of days when she was a girl, and knelt at her
mother's knee, and said, "Our Father," before she went to bed. But that
was long before she had heard of Bermuda Point, or thought of having
boys and girls of her own. When they came she had forgotten all about
those early days; and so they had never been taught to say their
prayers, or anything else, in fact, except to help their father with the
boat, shoot wild-fowl in the winter, and gather samphire on the shore
during the summer.

She thought of this now, and half wished she had thought of it before.
Perhaps if she had tried to teach her children to pray, they would have
been more of a comfort to her. Perhaps Jack, her eldest, would not have
run away from home as he did, leaving them for years to wonder whether
he was alive or dead, but sending no word to comfort them.

The boys were almost as perplexed as their mother. The little they had
heard of God filled them with terror, and so to hear such a prayer as
this was something so startling that they could think and talk of
nothing else until their father came in, when, as usual, silence fell on
the whole family, for Coomber was in a sullen mood now.

The next day Tiny, as she had called herself, was decidedly better. A
little bed had been made up for her in the family living-room, and she
lay there, quiet but observant, while Mrs. Coomber went about her
work--cooking and cleaning and mending, and occasionally stopping to
kiss the little wistful face that watched her with such quiet curiosity.

"Am I in a s'ip now?" the child asked at length, when Mrs. Coomber had
kissed her several times.

"You're in a boat, deary; but you needn't be afraid; our boat is safe
enough."

"I