hat they used to call a knight upon an errand, in the
picture-books, when I was romantic, only for the hair that comes under
his nose. Ah! his errand will be to break the hearts of the young ladies
that goes down upon the sands in their blue gowns, I'm afraid, if they
can only manage with the hair below his nose."

"And do them good, some of them, and be a judgment from the Lord, for
the French style in their skirts is a shocking thing to see. What should
we have said when you and I were young, my dear? But quick step is the
word for me, for I expect my Jenny home on her day out from the Admiral,
and no Harry in the house to look after her. Ah! dimity-parlours is a
thing as may happen to cut both ways, Mrs. Cheeseman."

Widow Shanks had good cause to be proud of her cottage, which was the
prettiest in Springhaven, and one of the most commodious. She had fought
a hard fight, when her widowhood began, and the children were too young
to help her, rather than give up the home of her love-time, and the
cradle of her little ones. Some of her neighbours (who wanted the house)
were sadly pained at her stubbornness, and even dishonesty, as they put
it, when she knew that she never could pay her rent. But "never is a
long time," according to the proverb; and with the forbearance of
the Admiral, the kindness of his daughters, and the growth of her own
children, she stood clear of all debt now, except the sweet one of
gratitude.

And now she could listen to the moaning of the sea (which used to make
her weep all night) with a milder sense of the cruel woe that it had
drowned her husband, and a lull of sorrow that was almost hope; until
the dark visions of wrecks and corpses melted into sweet dreams of her
son upon the waters, finishing his supper, and getting ready for his
pipe. For Harry was making his own track well in the wake of his dear
father.

Now if she had gone inland to dwell, from the stroke of her great
calamity--as most people told her to make haste and do--not only the
sympathy of the sea, but many of the little cares, which are the ants
that bury heavy grief, would have been wholly lost to her. And amongst
these cares the foremost always, and the most distracting, was that
of keeping her husband's cottage--as she still would call it--tidy,
comfortable, bright, and snug, as if he were coming on Saturday.

Where the brook runs into the first hearing of the sea, to defer its own
extinction it takes a lively turn in