'Of course I don't pretend to be as clever as you, but if you'd never seen the sea until a week ago you might forget.' 'Yes, yes, for-for-get that it--it wasn't as nice as brandy-and-soda,' cried Montgomery, holding his sides. 'I wasn't going to say that, and it was very rude of you to interrupt me in that way.' 'Now come, don't get cross. You should understand a joke better than that,' he replied, for seeing the tears in her eyes he began to fear that he had spoilt the delight of their day. 'I think it is unkind of you to laugh at me and play tricks on me like that,' said Kate, trying to master her emotion; and as they walked under the sunset, Montgomery broke long and irritating silences by apologizing for his indiscretion, but Kate did not answer him until they arrived at a place where a little boy and girl were fishing for shrimps. Here there was quite a little lake, and amid the rocks and weedy stones the clear water flowed as it might in an aquarium, the liquid surface reflecting as perfectly as any mirror the sky's blue, with clouds going by and many delicate opal tints, and the forms of the children's plump limbs. 'Oh, how nice they look! What little dears!' exclaimed Kate, but as she pressed forward to watch the children her foot dislodged a young lobster from the corner of rock in which he had been hiding. 'That's a lobster,' cried Montgomery. 'Is it?' cried Kate, and she pursued the ungainly thing, which sought vainly for a crevice. After an animated chase, with the aid of her parasol she caught it, and was about to take it up with her fingers when Montgomery stopped her. 'You'd better take care; it will pretty well nip the fingers off you.' 'You aren't joking?' she asked innocently. 'No, indeed I'm not; but I hope you don't mind my telling you.' At that moment their eyes met, and Kate, seeing how foolish she had been, burst into fits of laughter. 'No, no, no, I--I don't mind your telling me that--that a lobster bites, but--' 'But when it comes to saying sea-water is not as nice as brandy-and-soda,' he replied, bursting into a roar of merriment, 'we cut up rough, don't we?' The children climbed up on the rocks to look at them, and it was some time before Kate could find words to ask them to show what they had caught.