again.

"Oh, then, it's dad you're afraid of, and not God?" said Dick.

"Afraid! What do you mean?" asked Tiny. "God loves me, and takes care of
me, and so does daddy; and if I was to talk to Harry Hayes, it would
make him cross, and God doesn't like us to make people cross; and little
gals has to do as they are told, you know."

"Oh yes; I know all about that," said Dick; "but what do you suppose God
thinks of dad when he makes himself cross with the whisky?"

"Oh! He's dreadfully sorry, Dick, I know He is, for He makes me afraid
of him sometimes, when he's had a big lot; and he's just the dearest
daddy when he forgets to bring the bottle home from Fellness."

"Ah, but that ain't often," grunted Dick; "and if God wouldn't like you
to talk to Harry Hayes, 'cos dad says you musn't, I'd like to know what
He thinks of dad sometimes, that's all." And then Dick ran away, for if
he could not speak to the farm children, he liked to be near them when
they came to play on the sands.

A minute or two after Dick had left her, Tiny was startled by a sound
close at hand, and, looking round, she saw Coomber coming from the other
side of the sandhill.

"Oh, dad, I thought you was out in the boat," she said.

[Illustration: "'I WANT YOU TO SING A BIT, WHILE I RUB AWAY AT THIS OLD
GUN.'" (_See page 81._)]

"Bob and Tom have gone by themselves to-day, for I wanted to clean the
gun ready for winter," said the fisherman, still rubbing at the lock
with a piece of oiled rag.

Tiny looked up at him half shyly, half curiously, for if he had only
been on the other side of the sand-ridge, he must have heard all she and
Dick had been talking about.

But if he had heard the fisherman took no notice of what had passed.

"Come, I want you to sing a bit, while I rub away at this old gun," he
said. "Sing 'Star of Peace'; it'll sound first-rate out here;" as though
he had never heard it out there before, when, as a matter of fact,
scarcely a day passed but she sang it to please him.

When she had finished, he said, quickly: "What do you think about that
'Star of Peace' deary? It's the sailor's star, you know, so I've got a
sort of share in it like."

"I think it means God. I'm a'most sure mother said it meant God," added
the little girl.

"Ah, then, I don't think there's much share of it for me," said Coomber,
somewhat sadly; and he turned to rubbing his gun again, and began
talking about it--how rusty he had found it, and how he woul