"Why, it's niver Masther Charlie, sure?" she exclaimed with delight, on meeting the Chesters one day. "It's meself that knew the bright face of yez the moment I saw ut, though ye're growed such a foine young gintleman an' all. Ye was staying at No. 7 two years back with yer mamma--an illigant lady she was, too--and your sister, Miss Hilda, the swate little colleen. Holy saints! this must be herself and none other, for it's not twice ye'd see such a pair of eyes and forgit them." What became of Biddy during the winter, when there were no visitors to buy her fish, was an unsolved mystery. "Sure, I makes what I can by the koindness of sthrangers during the summer toime!" she had replied when Isobel once sounded her on the subject. "There's many a one as gives me an extra penny or two, or says, 'Kape the change, Biddy Mulligan!' The Blessed Virgin reward them! Thank you kindly, marm," as Mrs. Stewart took the hint. "May your bed in heaven be aisy, and may ye niver lack a copper to give to them as needs it." Besides Biddy, Isobel had a number of other acquaintances in Silversands. There was the coastguard at the cottage on the top of the cliffs, who sometimes allowed her to look through his telescope, and who had an interesting barometer in the shape of a shell-covered cottage with two doors, from one of which a little soldier appeared when it was going to be fine, while a nautical-looking gentleman in a blue jacket came out to give warning of wet weather. Then there was the owner of the pleasure boats, who had promised to take her for a row entirely free of charge on the day before she was going home; and the bathing woman, who always tried to keep for her the van with the blue stripes and the brass hooks inside because she knew she liked it. The donkey boy had christened the special favourite with the new harness "_her_ donkey," and made it go with unwonted speed even on the outward journey (as a rule it galloped of its own accord when its nose was turned towards home); and the blind harpist by the railway station had waxed quite confidential on the subject of Scottish ballads, and had allowed her to try his instrument. As for the members of the Sea Urchins' Club, she felt as if she had known them all her life, and the sayings and doings of the Chesters, the Rokebys, the Wrights, and the Barringtons occupied a large part of her conversation. Jolly as they were, none of them in Isobel's estimation could compare with Belle Stuart, who from the first had claimed her as her particular chum. The two managed to spend nearly the whole of every day together, sometimes in company with the other children, or sometimes alone on the beach, hunting for shells and sea anemones, picking flowers, or just sitting talking in delicious idleness under the shade of a rock, listening to the dash of the waves and the screams of the sea gulls which were following the tide.