'Thank you, Major Dennis. My niece, Miss Merrifield.'

He seemed to be a very courteous old gentleman, for he bowed, and
made some polite speech about Sir Jasper, and, as he was military,
Gillian hoped to have heard some more about the journey when they sat
down, and room was made for her; but instead of that he and her aunt
began a discussion of the comings and goings of people she had never
heard of, and the letting or not letting of half the villas in
Rockstone; and she found it so dull that she had a great mind to go
and join the siege of Sandcastle. Only her shoes and her dress were
fitter for the esplanade than the shore with the tide coming in; and
when one has just begun to buy one's own clothes, that is a
consideration.

At last she saw Aunt Jane's trim little figure come out on the sands
and make as straight for the children as she could, amid greetings
and consultations, so with an exclamation, she jumped up and went
over the shingle to meet them, finding an endeavour going on to make
them tolerably respectable for the walk home, by shaking off the
sand, and advising Val to give up her intention of dragging home a
broad brown ribbon of weed with a frilled edge, all polished and
shiny with wet. She was not likely to regard it as such a curiosity
after a few days' experience of Rockquay, as her new friends told
her.

Kitty Varley went to the High School, which greatly modified
Valetta's disgust to it, for the little girls had already vowed to be
the greatest chums in the world, and would have gone home with arms
entwined, if Aunt Jane had not declared that such things could not be