s quite romantic," said Belle, sitting down on a spar, and twisting
some pink bindweed round her hat. "We could have tea here, and get up a
dance on the sands afterwards. I've found such a pretty pencil-case
among the drift-wood. I mean to keep it."

"I don't think any one else has discovered the island," said Isobel. "So
we've quite a right to take possession, haven't we?"

"It's the very thing we want, and we'll annex it at once," said Charlie;
and drawing the empty shell of a sea urchin from his pocket, he slipped
it on to the top of a stick, which he planted firmly in the sand as an
ensign; then climbing on to the summit of a rock close by, he waved his
handkerchief to north, south, east, and west, exclaiming, "We hereby
take solemn possession of this island in the name of the United Sea
Urchins' Recreation Society, and are prepared to hold the same in legal
right against all comers. If any one has just cause or impediment to
offer why the said society should not occupy this territory in peace and
prosperity, let him speak now, or hereafter for ever hold his peace.
Rule, Britannia! God save the King!"

With a burst of cheers the others unanimously declared themselves
witnesses to the deed, and decided that possession being nine-tenths of
the law, the island, for the time at any rate, was undoubtedly their
own, and until any one appeared to dispute their claim they would make
what they pleased of it.

"To-morrow we'll rig out a real pioneer party of settlers, and come with
hammers and nails and axes and all the rest of it," said Charlie. "Then
we can put up a flag and decide on names and everything. We haven't time
to explore the top now, though it looks jolly upon those cliffs; we
must get back before the tide turns. It's a ripping place, but it would
be no joke, all the same, to be surrounded and have to spend the night
here."

The Sea Urchins took to the idea of a camp on a desert island with the
greatest enthusiasm, and next day the elder portion of them started off
with any tools which they could buy, beg, or borrow, anxious to set to
work at once upon the task of constructing a dwelling from the wreck of
the old schooner. By fastening a rope to the hull, they contrived to tug
it out of the sand and tilt it on end against a rock; then with the aid
of the broken planks which were lying near they propped it up securely
and repaired any damaged or broken pieces, so that it made the most
successful hut, a kind