without a word of explanation, and went out. Mrs. Wragge
watched her from the window and saw that she took the direction of the
chemist's shop.

On reaching the chemist's door she stopped--paused before entering
the shop, and looked in at the window--hesitated, and walked away a
little--hesitated again, and took the first turning which led back to
the beach.

Without looking about her, without caring what place she chose, she
seated herself on the shingle. The only persons who were near to her, in
the position she now occupied, were a nursemaid and two little boys. The
youngest of the two had a tiny toy-ship in his hand. After looking at
Magdalen for a little while with the quaintest gravity and attention,
the boy suddenly approached her, and opened the way to an acquaintance
by putting his toy composedly on her lap.

"Look at my ship," said the child, crossing his hands on Magdalen's
knee.

She was not usually patient with children. In happier days she would
not have met the boy's advance toward her as she met it now. The hard
despair in her eyes left them suddenly; her fast-closed lips parted and
trembled. She put the ship back into the child's hands and lifted him on
her lap.

"Will you give me a kiss?" she said, faintly. The boy looked at his ship
as if he would rather have kissed the ship.

She repeated the question--repeated it almost humbly. The child put his
hand up to her neck and kissed her.

"If I was your sister, would you love me?" All the misery of her
friendless position, all the wasted tenderness of her heart, poured from
her in those words.

"Would you love me?" she repeated, hiding her face on the bosom of the
child's frock.

"Yes," said the boy. "Look at my ship."

She looked at the ship through her gathering tears.

"What do you call it?" she asked, trying ha rd to find her way even to
the interest of a child.

"I call it Uncle Kirke's ship," said the boy. "Uncle Kirke has gone
away."

The name recalled nothing to her memory. No remembrances but old
remembrances lived in her now. "Gone?" she repeated absently, thinking
what she should say to her little friend next.

"Yes," said the boy. "Gone to China."

Even from the lips of a child that word struck her to the heart. She put
Kirke's little nephew off her lap, and instantly left the beach.

As she turned back to the house, the struggle of the past night renewed
itself in her mind. But the sense of relief which the child had bro