“Come, will you, Zerah; there’s some one wants to have a say with you.” With a curt excuse to the parson, Mrs. Pepperill descended. She found her husband at the foot of the stairs, with his hand on the banister. “Pasco,” said she, “what do’y think now? The parson has been accusing me of murdering Kate. If she dies, he says he’ll have me up to Exeter Assizes and hung for it. I’ll never set foot in church again, never--I’ll join the Primitive Methodists.” “As you please,” said her husband. “But go to the door at once. There is John Pooke waiting, and won’t be satisfied till he has had a talk with you about Kate. He wants to know all about Kitty--how she’s doing, whether she’s in danger, if she wants anything that the Pookes can supply. He’s hanging about the door like what they call a morbid fly. He’s in a terrible taking, and won’t be put off with what I can tell.” “Well, now,” exclaimed Zerah, “here’s an idea! Something may come of that night on a mud-bank after all, and more than she deserves. Oh my! if my Wilmot was alive, and Jan Pooke were to inquire after her! Go up, Pasco, and send that parson away. I won’t speak to him again--abusing of me and calling me names shameful, and he an ordained minister. What in the world are we coming to?” When the doctor arrived, he pronounced that he would pull Kate through. Presently the delirium passed away, and on the following morning the light of intelligence returned to her eyes. “They are still there,” she said eagerly, raising her head and listening. “What are still there?” asked her aunt. “The gulls.” In fact, these animated foam-flakes of the ocean were about in vast numbers, uttering their peculiar cries as they hovered over the mud. “Of course they are there--why not?” “Father said he was going to make ladies’ waistcoats of them, and I’ve been fretting and crying--and then, the daffodils”-- “Oh, bother the daffodils and the gulls! They may wait a long while before waistcoats are made of them.” “It is not of daffodils father was going to make waistcoats. He said he would have all the gulls shot.” “Never worrit your head about that. The birds can take care of themselves and fly away to sea.” “But the daffodils cannot get away. He was going to have a scythe and mow them all down and sell them.” “Wait till folk are fools enough to buy.” There was much to be done in the house. Mrs. Pepperill was unable to be always in the room with her niece. It was too early in the year for pleasure parties to come up the river in boats for tea or coffee, winkles and cockles, in the open air, but the house itself exacted attention--the cooking, the washing, had to be done. Now that Zerah was deprived of the assistance of her niece, perhaps for the first time did she realise how useful the girl had been to her. By night Kate was left alone; there was no space in the attic chamber for a second bed, nor did her condition require imperatively that some one should be with her all night.