ent
for the island. I should like to know, so that I can tell the others."

"I'll take this discovery in lieu of all payment," declared the colonel.
"You and your companions, the Sea Urchins, are welcome to have free run
of the place while you are here. Good-bye, little friend! You always
seem to turn up in exceptional circumstances. You and I appear to have a
few interests in common, so I hope that some time I may have the
pleasure of meeting you again."

CHAPTER XIV.

A WET DAY.

"Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises; and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest and despair most sits."

The estrangement between Isobel and her friend was of very short
duration after all. That same evening they had met on the Parade, and
Belle had run up with her former affectionate manner, so completely
ignoring the remembrance of any differences between them that Isobel
thankfully let the matter slide, only too glad to resume the friendship
on the old terms, and hoping that such an unpleasant episode might not
occur again. The two had arranged to make an expedition together to the
old town on the following day, but the morning proved so very wet that
it was impossible for any one to go out of doors.

"It's a perfect deluge of a day," said Isobel, looking hopelessly at the
ceaseless drip, drip which descended from the leaden skies. "It doesn't
seem as if it ever meant to clear up again. I think it must have rained
like this on the first morning of the Flood. It couldn't have been
worse, at any rate."

The back sitting-room of a lodging-house does not, as a rule, afford the
most brilliant of views, so the scene which met Isobel's eyes was hardly
calculated to raise her spirits. The paved yard behind was swimming with
water, through which a drenched and disconsolate tabby cat, excluded
from the paradise of the kitchen, was attempting to pick its way,
shaking its paws at every step. Marine Terrace being a comparatively new
row, the back premises were still in a somewhat unfinished condition,
and instead of gardens and flower-beds, your eye was greeted by heaps of
sand and mortar, bricks and rubbish, not yet carted away by the
builders, which, added to piles of empty bottles and old hampers, gave a
rather forlorn appearance to the place. After watching pussy's struggles
with the elements, and seeing her finally seek refuge in the coal-house,
Isobel took a turn to the front door, and stood