"It's a lonely place to live, away out there. Has he a wife,--any children?" "Mrs. Rimmer's always in bed." "An invalid. I must call and see her, Methody or no Methody." "And there's young Seth and Kattie." "I saw the girl peeping out after you'd passed. She's a nice-looking girl. I shall call and get to know her," said the Little Lady decisively. "We'll go and make their acquaintance to-morrow," said her brother. "What does Mr. Rimmer do? Fishing?" A nod from Jim. "Keeps his boat up in the river, two miles further on." "And the Mere? Any fish there?" "Ducks in winter. We got one once." "Had to lie in the rushes all day," said Jack, with a reminiscent shiver. "It was a good duck," said Jim. And the next afternoon the Rev. Charles set out for the cottage, with Grace skipping about him in search of treasure-trove of beach and sand-hill. It was a stoutly-built little wooden house, standing back in a hollow of the sand-hummocks, and its solitariness was enhanced by reason of the vast and lonely expanse of Wyn Mere, which lay just behind it. The shore of the Mere was thick with reeds and rushes. The long unbroken stretch of water silently mirroring the blue sky, with its margin of rustling reeds, possessed a beauty all its own, but something of sadness and solemnity too. Grace, standing on top of a sand-hill, with a high tide dancing merrily up the flats on the one side and the long silent Mere on the other, put it into words. "How unhappy it looks, Charlie! I like the sea best. It laughs." "It laughs just now, my dear, but sometimes it roars and thunders." "All the same, I like it best. This other looks as if it drowned people." "I don't suppose it ever drowned as many people as the sea, Gracie." "Then it seems as if it thought more of those it has drowned. I wouldn't live here for anything. I'd cut a hole through the sand-hills and let the sea wash it all away." "Better see what Mr. Rimmer thinks of it before you do that." And he laid a restraining hand on her arm as the door of the wooden house opened quietly, and a man came out backwards and stood for a moment with his head bent towards the door as if he were listening. His hair was long and of scanty grizzled gray. He wore a blue jersey and high sea-boots, and carried his sou'wester in his hand. Then he straightened up, clapped on his hat, and strode away round the house towards the Mere. Eager jumped down the sand-hill and ran after him, and caught him before he reached a flat-bottomed skiff drawn up on to the sedgy shore. "Is this Mr. Rimmer?" he asked. "Seth Rimmer, at yore service, sir." And there turned on them a fine old gray face, laced and seamed with weather-lines that told of bitter black nights on the sea, when the spume flew and the salt bit deep. The blue eyes, very deep under the bushy gray brows, were shrewd and kindly; the mouth, half hidden in gray moustache and beard, was set very firmly.