"I've got to get a lot of samphire to-day, and I promised Dick I'd make some more letters for him in the sand," said Tiny, meditatively. "But daddy wants you to help him with the net," suggested Mrs. Coomber. The little girl had always been so pliant, so amenable to control, that Mrs. Coomber was surprised to hear her say passionately-- "I won't do that nasty net. I must pick the samphire for Dame Peters, and show Dick my picture, first;" and then she snatched up a basket, and ran out, not to the sands, where the fisherman and his boys sat mending the torn net, but away to the salt-marsh, where the seaweed grew thickest, and she could fill her basket most quickly. In an hour or two she came home, looking tired and cross. "Ain't Dick come home yet?" she asked, throwing herself on the floor. "They ain't done the net yet. Tom came to fetch you a little while ago." "I don't want Tom, I want Dick. We're going to make some letters, and learn to read," said Tiny. "You'd better leave the reading alone, if it makes you so cross," said Mrs. Coomber. "No, it don't make me cross; it's that nasty net." "But you always liked to help daddy wind the string and mend the net before. Why don't you go to them now?" But Tiny would not move. She lay on the floor, kicking and grumbling, because Dick could not leave the net and come and see her picture. "You're a very naughty girl, Tiny," said Mrs. Coomber at last; "and I don't see how you can think God will love you if you don't try to be good." The little girl sat up instantly, and looked earnestly into her face. "My other mammy used to say something like that," she said, slowly. And then she burst into tears, and ran and shut herself in the boys' bedroom. What passed there, Mrs. Coomber did not know; but, half an hour afterwards, as she glanced out of the little kitchen window, she saw her running across the sands to where the group of boys sat mending the old net; and she smiled as she thought of what her words had done. She did not know what a hard fight Tiny had had with herself before she could make up her mind to give up her own way; she only thought how pleased her husband would be when he saw the child come running towards him, and that a fit of ill-humour, from which they would probably all have suffered, had been warded off by the little girl's conquest of herself. But neither Tiny nor Mrs. Coomber ever forgot that day. A new element was introduced into the lives of the fisherman's family. The little girl learned her first lesson in self-control, and Dick and Tom began to master the difficulties of the alphabet; for, when the net was finished, and Bob and his father waded out into the sea on their shrimping expedition, Tiny ran and fetched her pretty picture to show the boys, and then they all set to work with bits of stick to make the letters in the sand. [Illustration] CHAPTER V. ON THE SANDS.