oss," said
Mrs. Coomber.

"No, it don't make me cross; it's that nasty net."

"But you always liked to help daddy wind the string and mend the net
before. Why don't you go to them now?"

But Tiny would not move. She lay on the floor, kicking and grumbling,
because Dick could not leave the net and come and see her picture.

"You're a very naughty girl, Tiny," said Mrs. Coomber at last; "and I
don't see how you can think God will love you if you don't try to be
good."

The little girl sat up instantly, and looked earnestly into her face.
"My other mammy used to say something like that," she said, slowly. And
then she burst into tears, and ran and shut herself in the boys'
bedroom.

What passed there, Mrs. Coomber did not know; but, half an hour
afterwards, as she glanced out of the little kitchen window, she saw her
running across the sands to where the group of boys sat mending the old
net; and she smiled as she thought of what her words had done. She did
not know what a hard fight Tiny had had with herself before she could
make up her mind to give up her own way; she only thought how pleased
her husband would be when he saw the child come running towards him, and
that a fit of ill-humour, from which they would probably all have
suffered, had been warded off by the little girl's conquest of herself.

But neither Tiny nor Mrs. Coomber ever forgot that day. A new element
was introduced into the lives of the fisherman's family. The little girl
learned her first lesson in self-control, and Dick and Tom began to
master the difficulties of the alphabet; for, when the net was finished,
and Bob and his father waded out into the sea on their shrimping
expedition, Tiny ran and fetched her pretty picture to show the boys,
and then they all set to work with bits of stick to make the letters in
the sand.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER V.

ON THE SANDS.

Tiny was somewhat disappointed as the days went on to find that her
pupils, Tom and Dick, took less and less interest in learning the
letters she marked in the sand, or pointed out on the paper. They teased
her to know how to put the letters together and make them into words
which they could understand. But, alas! labour as she would, Tiny could
not get over this difficulty even for herself. She had a dim idea that
G O D spelt God, but she could not be quite sure--not sure enough to tell
Dick that it was so. It was enough, however, to quicken her own interest
in what