Miss Rufus soon formed the habit of keeping him to walk with her. At first this caused him embarrassment. Little by little--how was it?--he became aware that with him she was different. As the mood took her, she spoke to him sharply, was merely forbidding, or was so kind that he forgot the sourness of her corrugated countenance and the ugly color of her hair. It was instinctive with him to treat all women as he did his mother, with quaint chivalry and forethought. An attitude of gallantry in a pupil was something new to Miss Rufus. When they came to the miles of beach, all tawny like a golden mantle spread out with a thread of silver in the far, far distance where the sea washed its hem, instead of going to romp with the other boys he sat himself down beside her. “Go and play,” she told him. “But you'd be alone, mam.” “I was always alone before you came.” “But I'm here now.” He stood before her laughing, with his cap in his hand and the wind in his hair. He showed no fear of her--that was not his way with strangers. She gazed in his face--the gray eyes, the flushed cheeks, the red mouth. This was not the sullen little slave of her normal experience. In spite of herself, his bright intelligence and willingness to be loved stirred something in her breast. If she had not cared what people had thought of her--if she had been brave, her child might have been like that. Her chapped, coarse-grained features grew wistful. Peter, looking at her, saw only a disagreeable, faded woman with red hair. “You don't like me, do you?” “Us'ally I like everyone,” said Peter; “I don't know you yet.” “I'm a cross old woman. If you don't mind losing your play, you can come and sit beside me.” And Peter sat down. It was dull for him. Across the sands boats on wheels raced with spread sails, dashing toward the silver thread. Ponies, which you could hire for a few pennies, were galloping up and down. Across the flat beach, like a monstrous centipede, with trestles for legs, the long pier crawled with its head in the sea and its tail on land. And the pier had its own delirious excitements: on show, in the casino at the end, was a troop of performing fleas who drove one another in the tiniest of hansom-cabs. Peter knew because a lady-flea, named Ethel, had been lost; a reward for her recovery was advertised all over Sandport. Ten shillings were offered and hundreds of fleas had been submitted for inspection. Peter had a wild dream that he might find Ethel: with ten shillings he could escape to London from this Egypt of exile in the sand. Miss Rufus broke in on his reverie. She had been wondering how anyone who had the right to Peter could be so foolish as to do without him. “Why did they send you?” “Send me to you?” “Yes.” “Because I made Kay cry about heaven.” “Humph! D'you know what it says about heaven in the Bible?--that there's no marriage. Was that what she cried about?”