y a
slightly lower crag from the east, and open only towards the south,
where the garden sloped down to a sandy cove and a narrow creek that
made a natural harbour for Mr. Binks's boat, which was generally moored
to a small jetty under the wall. It was an ancient stone farmhouse, with
large mullioned windows and hospitable, ever-open door, over which two
tamarisk bushes had been trained into a rustic porch. The garden was gay
with such hardy flowers as would flourish so near to the sea, growing in
patches between the rows of potatoes and beans, and interspersed here
and there with the figureheads of vessels, while at the end was a
summer-house, evidently made from an upturned boat, and covered thickly
with traveller's joy. Here Mr. Binks appeared to be taking an afternoon
nap while awaiting the arrival of his visitors, but at the click of the
opening gate he sprang up with a start, and advanced to meet them with
brawny, outstretched hand.

"I'm reet glad to see you, I am!" he exclaimed cordially. "It's royal
weather, too, though a trifle hotter nor suits me.--Missis!" (bawling
through the doorway), "where iver are you a-gone? Here's company come,
and waitin' for you!"

Mrs. Binks could not have been very far away, for she bustled into the
front garden in a moment, her round, rosy, apple face smiling all over
with welcome. She was a fine, tall, elderly woman, so stout that her
figure reminded you of a large soft pillow tied in the middle. She wore
an old-fashioned black silk dress, with a white muslin apron, and a
black netted cap with purple ribbons over her smoothly parted gray hair.

"Well, now, I'm _that_ pleased!" she declared. "Come in, and set you
down. You'll be fair tired out, mum, with your walk over the moor,
havin' had a bad foot and all. It's a nasty thing to strain your ankle,
it is that.--Come in, missy. Binks has talked a deal about you, he
has--thinks you're the very moral of our Harriet's Clara over at
Skegness; but, bless you, I don't see no likeness myself. The kettle's
just on the boil, and you must take a cup of tea first thing to freshen
you up like. It's a good step from Silversands, and a bit close to-day
to come so far."

Seated in a corner of the high-backed oak settle, Isobel looked with
eager curiosity round the old farm kitchen. Its flagged stone floor, the
sliding cupboards in the walls, the great beams of the ceiling covered
with hooks from which were suspended flitches of bacon, bunch