for the limbs of his lesser followers, or whether the fact were--what
Rachel did not remotely imagine--that he was less utterly
unmanageable with her sister than with herself, certain it is that
the brothers went into still more intolerable places, and treated
their guardian as ducklings treat an old hen. At last they quite
disappeared from the view round a projecting point of rock, and when
she turned it, she found a battle royal going on over an old lobster-
pot--Conrade hand to hand with a stout fisher-boy, and Francis and
sundry amphibious creatures of both sexes exchanging a hail of
stones, water-smoothed brick-bats, cockle-shells, fishes' backbones,
and other unsavoury missiles. Abstractedly, Rachel had her theory
that young gentlemen had better scramble their way among their poor
neighbours, and become used to all ranks; but when it came to
witnessing an actual skirmish when she was responsible for Fanny's
sons, it was needful to interfere, and in equal dismay and
indignation she came round the point. The light artillery fled at
her aspect, and she had to catch Francis's arm in the act of
discharging after them a cuttlefish's white spine, with a sharp "For
shame, they are running away! Conrade, Zack, have done!" Zack was
one of her own scholars, and held her in respect.

He desisted at once, and with a touch of his rough forelock, looked
sheepish, and said, "Please ma'am, he was meddling with our lobster-
pot."

"I wasn't doing any harm," said Conrade. "I was just looking in, and
they all came and shied stones at us."

"I don't care how the quarrel began," said Rachel. "You would not
have run into it if you had been behaving properly. Zack was quite