'Oh well--but that's only a way of speaking. Papa didn't mean a real
boat--a little boat. Now, if we could go down those steps right among
all the ships I'd soon show you the difference.'

'But we mustn't, Rough,' said Alie anxiously. 'Not without papa or
somebody big--any way we must ask leave first.'

'Well, I suppose it would hardly do for you girls,' Rough replied. 'But
of course papa would let _me_ go. He and I walked all round the docks
last night, and we should have gone to the end of the pier if----'

'Oh, that reminds me,' said Rosalys. 'Haven't we passed Pier Street?
I believe that must be it opposite. Yes, I see it put up. Now we must
find out Mr. Fairchild's. Can't you ask somebody, Rough?'

Randolph, though he would not have confessed it, was a little shy of
accosting any of the few passers-by. Just because there were so few and
the place was so quiet, the children felt themselves rather
uncomfortably conspicuous, and they could not help noticing that here
and there the inhabitants came rather unnecessarily to their doors to
look at them as they passed. It was not done rudely, and indeed it was
only natural that the arrival of a new rector and his family at Seacove
should attract a good deal of attention, considering that old Dr. Bunton
and his wife had been fixtures there for more years than Mr. Vane
himself had been in the world.

'Oh yes,' said Rough in an off-hand way, 'I can ask any one. But we
may as well walk on a little and look about us. If it is a shop we'll
see the name.'