height with all the headlong thump of a gannet after its prey. Loveday's
dive was as the gull's for grace contrasted with it. Their hands met;
Loveday divined in an instant, by the tug of Cherry's, that she was
suspected of trying to snatch the fairings, instead of merely restoring
them, and she straightened herself with a return of her sick anger.
Cherry clutched the frail morsels of riband and lace in her lap, then,
seeing there was no danger, began to straighten them out, scolding the
while.

"There, see, Primrose love, that edging is all crumpled ... did you ever
see the like? Never mind, I'll press it out for 'ee, and it'll look as
good as new. And this riband, that's the one I bought off Bendigo, the
pedlar, for Flora Day--oh, my dear life, what'll I do with it now?"

"'Tis a gurt shame, that's what 'tis," said Primrose, resentful both for
her friend's riband and her own edging; "and I'd get my Willie to make
her buy new, only 'tis no good asking paupers for money, because, even
if they was to be sold up, all their sticks and cloam wouldn't fetch
enough for a yard o' this riband."

The vulgar taunt had sting enough to rouse Loveday to a wholesome
contempt that saved her. She stood staring with a genuine scorn at the
little articles of lace and artificial flowers which Cherry's beau had
given her at the last fair. Yes, even at the riband which had been
Cherry's special pride as bought by herself from the pedlar, and it was
one that had taken Loveday's eye with its delicate beauty--for it was of
palest rose, like the shells she picked up on the beach, not a crude red
or blue, such as she saw in the shops at Bugletown when she went in on
market days. Secretly, something in her marvelled that such a riband had
been Cherry's choice, and her scorning of it now was the easier because