cution. "Don't you never let me catch you on this quay
again, meddlin' with other folk's property, if you want to keep your
skin on you."

"He really was most dreadfully angry," Isobel told her mother in the
graphic account which she gave afterwards of the adventure. "But Charlie
said how very sorry we were. He took the whole blame to himself, though
it wasn't all his fault by any means, and he offered to pay for having
borrowed the boat. Then the man said he spoke up like a gentleman, and
he wouldn't take his money from him; and Mr. Binks said bairns would be
bairns, and it was a mercy we hadn't gone to the bottom; and the man
shook hands with Charlie, and said he was a plucky little chap, with a
good notion of handling a sail, and he'd take him out some time and show
him how to do it properly. And Mr. Binks said I'd never been to see him
yet, and I told him you'd sprained your ankle and couldn't walk, but it
was getting better nicely, and you'd soon be able to; and he said, would
we write and give him warning when we'd made up our minds, and his
missis should bake a cranberry cake on purpose, and if we came early,
he'd row us over to see the balk. I said we should be very pleased,
because you'd promised before that you'd go. So you will, won't you,
mother?"

"I shall be only too glad to have an opportunity of thanking him," said
Mrs. Stewart. "I feel I owe him a big debt of gratitude to-day. Perhaps
in the meantime we can think of some pretty little present to take with
us that would please him and his wife, as a slight return for his
kindness. You would have time to embroider a tea-cosy if I were to help
you."

"That would be lovely," said Isobel. "And then they could use it every
day at tea-time. We could work a teapot on one side and a big 'B' on the
other for Binks. I'm sure they'd like that. May I go and buy the
materials this afternoon? I brought my thimble with me and my new
scissors in the green silk bag. I feel as if I should like to begin and
make it at once."

CHAPTER VIII.

CROSS-PURPOSES.

"Though a truth to outward seeming,
Yet a truth it may not prove."

Although Mrs. Stewart had now been more than ten days at Silversands she
had not yet received any reply to the letter which she had dispatched
with so many heart-burnings on the evening of her arrival.

"Does he mean to ignore it altogether?" she asked herself. "Will he
never forgive? Can he allow his grandchild, the only kit