home with her catch she went straight to the seine-maker's cabin.

When the little girl came along with her basket the old man was out
in the yard, cutting wood. She stood at the stile a moment,
watching him, before stepping over. He looked pitifully poor and
ragged. Even her father had never appeared so shabby.

The little girl had heard that some well-do-to people had offered
the seine-maker a home for life, but in preference he had gone to
live with his daughter-in-law, who made her home here in the
Ashdales, so as to help her in any way that he could; she had many
children, and her husband, who had deserted her, was now supposed
to be dead.

"To-day there was fish on the hooks!" shouted the little girl from
the stile.

"You don't tell me!" said the seine-maker. "But that was well."

"I'll gladly give you all the fish I catch," she told him, "if I'm
only allowed to do the fishing myself." So saying, she went up to
the seine-maker and emptied the contents of her basket on the
ground, expecting of course that he would be pleased and would
praise her, just as her father--who was always pleased with
everything she said or did--had always done. But the seine maker
took this attention with his usual calm indifference.

"You keep what's yours," he said. "We're so used to going hungry
here that we can get on without your few little fishes."