"Dear me, what a beautiful fish! How good your father is, Wally! Always thinking of somebody! Give him my best thanks back again. You have just got in, I suppose?" "Just ten minutes ago," responded Wally. "Been out two tides." "Well, I wonder your father does not begin to think more of his ease--and so well off as he must be! The night seems the same to him for work as the day." "One catches the best fish under the moon," shortly remarked the young man, as he handed over the wicker-tray. Miss Hallet took it into the house, and brought it back to him without the fish. Mr. Walter Dance caught the tray with a silent nod, and sped down the steep path at a rate, that, to unaccustomed eyes, might have seemed to put his neck in peril. Barely had Miss Hallet taken up her sewing again, when another visitor appeared. This one's footsteps were lighter and softer than the young man's, and she was seen almost as soon as heard. A dark-haired, quick-speaking young woman in black. It was Harriet, waiting-maid to Mrs. Castlemaine. "Is your niece at home, Miss Hallet?" "No. She's gone to Stilborough. How are you, Harriet?" "Oh, I'm all right, thank you. What a cliff this is to climb up!--a'most takes one's breath away. Gone to Stilborough, is she? Well, that's a bother!" "What did you want with her?" "Has she done any of them han'kerchers, do you know?" returned the young woman, without replying to the direct question. "I can't say. I know she has begun them. Would you like to come in and sit down?" "I've no time for sitting down. My missis has sent me off here on the spur of the moment: and when she sends one out on an errand for herself one had best not linger, you know. Besides, I must get back to dress my ladies." "Oh, must you," indifferently remarked Miss Hallet; who rarely evinced curiosity as to her neighbours' doings, or encouraged gossip upon trifles. "They are all going off to a dinner party at Stilborough; and missis took it into her head just now that she'd use one of her new fine cambric han'kerchers," continued Harriet. "So she sent me off here to get one." "But Mrs. Castlemaine is surely not short of fine handkerchiefs!" cried Miss Hallet. "Short of fine han'kerchers!--why, she's got a drawer fall. It was just a freak for a new thing; that's all." "Well, I do not know whether one is done, Harriet. Jane has been working at one; she was at it last night; but I did not notice whether she finished it." "Can't you look, please, Miss Hallet?" Miss Hallet rose from her chair and went upstairs. She came back empty-handed. "I don't see the handkerchiefs anywhere in Jane's room, Harriet. I daresay she has locked them up in her work-drawer: she has taken to lock up the drawer lately, I've noticed. If you could wait a few minutes she might be in: she'll not be long now." "But I can't wait; they start off at five," was the girl's answer: "and the missis and Miss Ethel have both got to be dressed. So I'll say good afternoon, ma'am."