'I suppose he will,' replied Neil, rather absently. 'I hope it won't turn out to have been some one on the island,' said Reggie. 'I hope not,' said Marjorie, looking over to the green fields and brown heather moors of Inchkerra. 'Isn't it dreadful to think that it may have been some one whom we know; some one we have spoken to quite lately?' 'Well, Miss Marjorie,' said Neil, 'do you not think we had better be getting the table cleared and the things put away? We have plenty of work before us, if we are to plant all Reggie's ferns; and we must not stay too late, for it iss anxious about you that Mrs. Stewart and Mrs. MacGregor will be.' 'Not they,' said Tricksy; 'no one is anxious when they know that you are with us, Neil.' Neil looked gratified, and the young people began to collect the dishes. 'Now, don't you bother about this piece of work,' said Marjorie, when the boys had carried the plates into the cottage; 'you go and amuse yourselves out-of-doors while Tricksy and I wash the dishes.' 'I wonder why you don't let them do their share of the disagreeable work, Marjorie,' said Tricksy a little discontentedly, when the boys had vanished. 'Pooh,' said Marjorie, with her arms in the hot water; 'what's the good? They'd only hate it, and besides, boys always do these things badly.' When the dishes and cooking utensils had been arranged upon the shelves, Marjorie and Tricksy went out into the garden, their eyes somewhat dim with peat smoke. 'Come along and help, you two,' cried Reggie; 'must get these things in this afternoon, or they'll be dead before we come back again. Bother it, though; we haven't enough tools to go round.' 'Here, Miss Tricksy,' interposed Neil; 'you take this little spade. This sharp piece of wood will be doing just as well for me.' 'And I've got a pointed piece of slate; I can scrape holes with that,' said Allan. 'Take this old trowel, Marjorie; it hasn't a handle, but I don't suppose you'll mind.' For a long time the young people worked with a will. The sun beat down upon the unshaded island, and the breeze blew in from the sea, bringing a salt taste to the lips and blowing the girls' hair about. The waves babbled round the shore, and the gulls sailed overhead and screamed. When the sun's rays began to slant, and the pile of ferns was diminishing, Neil kept glancing over his shoulder to watch the tide. 'There now, that's done,' said Reggie, pressing the earth round the roots of the last fern and then rising; 'it's a jolly long time it has taken us. What shall we do next?' 'I think we ought to go now,' said Hamish. 'What do you say, Neil?' 'It is high time we wass making a start,' said Neil. 'The tide iss rising fast, and the beach iss half covered already.' 'What a pity,' said Tricksy regretfully; 'we've had such a jolly day of it, haven't we, Marjorie?' 'Awfully jolly,' replied Marjorie; 'but we'll come again soon.--You'll come too, won't you, Neil?'