"No: Mr. Lavender has been telling me of London."

"And I have been trying to induce Miss Mackenzie to pay us a visit,
so that we may show her the difference between a city and an island.
But all to no purpose. Miss Mackenzie seems to like hard winters and
darkness and cold; and as for that perpetual and melancholy and cruel
sea, that in the winter-time I should fancy might drive anybody into a
lunatic asylum--"

"Ah, you must not talk badly of the sea," said the girl, with all
her courage and brightness returned to her face: "it is our very good
friend. It gives us food, and keeps many people alive. It carries the
lads away to other places, and brings them back with money in their
pockets--"

"And sometimes it smashes a few of them on the rocks, or swallows up
a dozen families, and the next morning it is as smooth and treacherous
and fair as if nothing had happened."

"But that is not the sea at all," said Sheila: "that is the storms
that will wreck the boats; and how can the sea help that? When the sea
is let alone the sea is very good to us."

Ingram laughed aloud and patted the girl's head fondly; and Lavender,
blushing a little, confessed he was beaten, and that he would never
again, in Miss Mackenzie's presence, say anything against the sea.

The King of Borva now appearing, they all went in to breakfast; and
Sheila sat opposite the window, so that all the light coming in from