As for Prudence, she put one hand down in the warm sand and burrowed into its depths, trying to absorb herself in the action. She had come on an impulse to see Carolyn and to gain an entrance to Savin Hill again. It had been uncomfortable to have to reply that she did not know, when people put inquiries to her about the Ffolliotts. And she was tired of suffering this sort of banishment. She wanted her aunt and cousin to be reconciled to her. People in the end always thus far had been obliged to become reconciled to her. This, to be sure, was rather a difficult matter. How very irritating Caro's face was! This she felt as she glanced at that face calmly contemplating the movements of a dory which a man was rowing out to his fishing-smack. "Caro, dear," she at last begun. Carolyn turned promptly towards her, and waited. This waiting was, for some reason, inexpressibly exasperating to Prudence, whose face flushed, and who was obliged to wait on her own account before she could speak as she wished to speak. Evidently she was to receive not the slightest help from her companion. With the rapidity of lightning, Prudence changed her plan as to what she would say. There came a certain line on either side of her mouth, a line which Carolyn had seen before and wondered about. "Do you want to know the very inmost, secret reason for my coming, Caro?" she asked. She removed her hand from the sand and carefully dusted her fingers with her handkerchief, smiling to herself as she did so. "If you'd like to tell," was the answer. "I'm dying to tell," she said, turning now fully towards her cousin and fixing her eyes upon her face. "Then," said Caro, placidly, "if you're dying to tell, I'll try to wait until you speak." Prudence felt her fingers tingle with a vixenish desire to slap the face before her. Really, was Caro so provoking as this in the old days? "Well, then, I came to congratulate you, my dear." "Congratulate me?" "Certainly. I hear one thing said every time your name is mentioned." Here Prudence came to a full stop, and tried to be patient until Carolyn should ask a question. But Carolyn resumed her watching of the man in the dory, who had now nearly reached the smack. Prudence began to plunge her hand once more in the sand. Her face was growing red. What had changed matters between her and the girl beside her? Formerly she had easily maintained the ascendency; now, indefinitely, she felt that she had lost this ascendency. There was color in Carolyn's face,--her blood she could not control,--but her features were as calm as if she could not think or feel. This one fact made Prudence afraid that when she did speak she might stammer from sheer anger and astonishment. Was this the cousin whom she had considered a sort of namby-pamby, goody-goody girl who would be easily controlled? It wasn't of the least use to wait for some word from Carolyn; so Prudence said: "You seem so calm, I suppose everything is all settled."