“’Tis real good o’ ye,” she said. “There, I think it awful kind.” “I’ve got some shells at home,” he went on, brightening up amazingly. “Do ye like shells?” “Sea-shells?” she inquired. “Ah! little shells as lays upo’ the beach when tide goes down. I picked up a two-three handfuls when I wer’ last at home.” Rebecca looked up from the dormouse, which she had been breathing upon to warm it, as it lay curled in her hand. “Is your home near the sea then?” “Aye--right among the sand-hills. I used to hear tide come roarin’ in last thing o’ nights and first thing o’ morns when I were a lad. My mother used to send me out to fetch in drift for our fire--there’s always a lot o’ wood an’ chips an’ straw an’ stuff washed up upon the shore, an’ I used to fill a basket in no time. Eh, in winter it used to be nippin’ cold! Many a time I’d find my sticks all froze together. ’Tis pretty nigh always sharp up yonder; always a wind blowin’ fresh and free and salty on your mouth.” “Be it a nice place?” “Well, I think it bonny--not same as this is bonny, though. There’s sand-hills runnin’ all along the shore, some big and some little, wi’ star-grass growin’ over ’em. An’ t’other side o’ the hills there’s the plain country--fields an’ that. Soil’s light, but crops does wonderful well, an’ there’s woods, and little dykes an’ pits nigh to the woods--eh, many’s the big snig I’ve catched!”--he paused, rubbing his hands with retrospective relish--“but ’tisn’t not to say bonny same as ’tis about here,” he concluded. “There, it do seem strange as I’ve never so much as had a sight o’ the sea,” said Rebecca. “They d’ say there’s a good view o’ Poole Harbour from Bulbarrow, but I’ve never been there.” “Happen I might take ye there some day,” suggested Robert. “Bulbarrow! that’s not so far.” A certain startled look in the girl’s eyes warned him that he was going too fast and he hastily changed the subject, embarking on a somewhat incoherent account of his childish adventures among the sand-hills. He went on to describe the dunes themselves more minutely, and then the river which ran along the shore so sluggishly that, however blue and clear the distant sea might be, the waves that broke upon the beach were always brown and muddy. “That’s not nice,” said Rebecca. “Nay,” acquiesced Robert unwillingly; “nay, I suppose not, but I liked it well enough.” “Better than this?” asked the girl quickly. The man’s sea-blue eyes looked straight into her face. “Not now,” he said. Next day when he came to Oakleigh Wood at the usual hour he made straight for the spot where he had heard the fictitious owl-hooting on the previous evening; and his heart leaped high when a repetition of the sound fell upon his ear. A few of his rapid strides brought him to the spot: Rebecca was standing beneath the beech-tree, as before, but so as to face the path, and as he approached she dropped her hand by her side with a little laugh. “I knowed it was you,” said Robert breathlessly.