"Oh well, I found the mushrooms, coming home, and they were worth a pailful of ormers." "You didn't beat them long enough. Ormers take a lot of beating," she explained to Lady Elspeth. "Thumping, she means. My mushrooms beat them hollow,--tender and delicate and fragrant"--and he sniffed appreciatively as though he could scent them still.--"Your ormers were like shoe-soles." "And as to the mushrooms," continued Hennie Penny, "you'd never have found them if I hadn't tumbled into them, and then you thought they were toadstools." "Oh well!--Who can't take a hook out of a whiting's mouth? Who was it screamed when the lobster looked at her?" "It nearly took a piece out of me." "Who nearly upset the boat when a baby devilfish came up in the pot? And it wasn't above that size!" "I draw the line at devil-fish. They're no' canny." "Do they generally go on like this?" asked Lady Elspeth of Margaret. "All the time," said Margaret, with a matronly air. "They're just a couple of children. I keep them out of mischief as well as I can, but it's hard work at times." "She's just every bit as bad, you know, when we're alone," said Miss Penny. "But she's got her company manners on just now. You should see her when she's bathing." "Ah--yes! You should see her when she's bathing," said Graeme, with a smack of the lips. "All the little waves and crabs and lobsters keep bobbing up to have another look at her. In Venus's Bath the other day--" "Now, children, stop your fooling. Where shall we go to-day?" laughed Margaret, and Lady Elspeth could hardly take her eyes off her, so winsomely, so radiantly happy was she. "We old folks will stay at home and talk to Mrs. Carre," said Lady Elspeth. "You young ones can go off and do what you like." "Oh no, you don't," said Graeme. "You didn't come here to loaf in a verandah. When you come to Sark you've got to enjoy yourselves, whether you want to or not. Suppose we take lunch along to the Eperquerie, and the elders can bask and snooze, and we'll bathe three times off that black ledge under Les Fontaines. And if the Seigneur's out fishing perhaps he'll take some of us with him, those who don't scream when the poor fish gets a hook in its throat. And you'll see Margaret out on the loose. She always goes it when she's swimming." "I hope you won't venture too far out, Charles," said Mrs. Pixley, with visions of his limp body being carried home. "Miss Penny and I are sensible people when we're bathing," said Charles. "We don't lose our heads--" "Nor any of the rest of you,--nor touch of the stones," laughed Graeme. "That's so," said Charles. "We like to know what's below us and that it's not too far away." "It's very wise," said Mrs. Pixley plaintively. "One hears of such dreadful accidents. I'm very glad you're so sensible, my dear," to Miss Penny. "Oh, I'm dreadfully sensible at times, especially when I'm bathing. But that's because I can only swim with one foot at the bottom."