At the end of a morning on the common Isobel found herself on quite an intimate footing with the Wrights, the Rokebys, the Barringtons, and the Chesters, besides being a duly elected member of "The United Sea Urchins' Recreation Society." "I've never had such fun in my life," she confided to her mother at dinner-time. "We played cricket, and then we went along the shore, because the tide was so low. I picked up the most beautiful screw shells, and razor shells, and fan shells you ever saw. I had to put them in my pocket handkerchief because I hadn't a basket with me. Bertie Rokeby got into a quicksand up to his knees, and Lulu sat down in the water in her clothes. You must come and see our club ground, mother, when you can walk so far. We have it quite to ourselves, for it's right behind the cliff, and none of the other visitors seem to have found it out yet; and if anybody else tries to take it, the boys say they mean to turn them off, because we got it first. They're all going to carry their tea there this afternoon, and light a fire of drift-wood to boil the kettle. So may I go too, and then we shall play cricket again in the evening?" CHAPTER V A HOT FRIENDSHIP. "I was a child, and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea." By the time Isobel had been a week at Silversands she had begun to feel as much at home there as the oldest inhabitant. She had won golden opinions from Mrs. Jackson at the lodgings, and had been invited by that worthy woman into the upper drawing-room during the temporary absence of its occupiers, and shown a most fascinating cabinet full of foreign shells, stuffed birds, corals, ivory bangles, sandal-wood boxes, and other curiosities brought home by a sailor son who made many voyages to the East. "Don't you wish you could have gone with him and got all these things for yourself?" said Isobel ecstatically, when she had examined and admired every article separately, and heard its history. "Nay," replied Mrs. Jackson, "I've never had no mind for shipboard, though my second cousin was stewardess on a Channel steamer for a matter of fifteen year, and made a tidy sum out of it too. She could have got me taken on by the Anchor Line as runs to America if I'd have signed for two years. That was when my first husband died, and afore I married Jackson; but I felt I'd rather starve on dry land than take it, though it was good wages they offered, to say nothing of tips." "Why, it would be glorious to go to America," said Isobel, sighing to think what her companion had missed. "You might have seen Red Indians, and wigwams, and medicine men, and 'robes of fur and belts of wampum,' like it talks of in 'Hiawatha.' Do you know 'Hiawatha'?" "There were an old steamer of that name used to trade from Liverpool in hides and tallow when I were a girl, if that's the one you mean. I wonder she hasn't foundered afore now."