“What to gracious!” she said—“whatever to gracious is the matter? Where’ve you been?” She took Mavis by the shoulder. “Why, you’re all sopping wet. You naughty, naughty little gell, you. Wait till I tell your Ma—been shrimping I lay—or trying to—never asking when the tide was right. And not a shrimp to show for it, I know, with the tide where it is. You wait till we hear what your Ma’s got to say about it. And look at my clean flags and you dripping all over ’em like a fortnight’s wash in wet weather.” Mavis twisted a little in Mrs. Pearce’s grasp. “Oh, don’t scold us, dear Mrs. Pearce,” she said, putting a wet arm up toward Mrs. Pearce’s neck. “We _are_ so miserable.” “And so you deserve to be,” said Mrs. Pearce, smartly. “Here, young chap, you go into the washhouse and get them things off, and drop them outside the door, and have a good rub with the jack-towel; and little miss can undress by the fire and put hern in this clean pail—and I’ll pop up softlike and so as your Ma don’t hear, and bring you down something dry.” A gleam of hope fell across the children’s hearts—a gleam wild and watery as that which the moonlight had cast across the sea, into which the Mermaid had disappeared. Perhaps after all Mrs. Pearce wasn’t going to tell Mother. If she was, why should she pop up softlike? Perhaps she would keep their secret. Perhaps she would dry their clothes. Perhaps, after all, that impossible explanation would never have to be given. The kitchen was a pleasant place, with bright brasses and shining crockery, and a round three-legged table with a clean cloth and blue-and-white teacups on it. Mrs. Pearce came down with their nightgowns and the warm dressing gowns that Aunt Enid had put in in spite of their expressed wishes. How glad they were of them now! “There, that’s a bit more like,” said Mrs. Pearce; “here, don’t look as if I was going to eat you, you little Peter Grievouses. I’ll hot up some milk and here’s a morsel of bread and dripping to keep the cold out. Lucky for you I was up—getting the boys’ breakfast ready. The boats’ll be in directly. The boys will laugh when I tell them—laugh fit to bust their selves they will.” “Oh, don’t tell,” said Mavis, “don’t, please don’t. Please, please don’t.” “Well, I like that,” said Mrs. Pearce, pouring herself some tea from a pot which, the children learned later, stood on the hob all day and most of the night; “it’s the funniest piece I’ve heard this many a day. Shrimping at high tide!” “I thought,” said Mavis, “perhaps you’d forgive us, and dry our clothes, and not tell anybody.” “Oh, you did, did you?” said Mrs. Pearce. “Anything else—?” “No, nothing else, thank you,” said Mavis, “only I want to say thank you for being so kind, and it isn’t high tide yet, and please we haven’t done any harm to the barrow—but I’m afraid it’s rather wet, and we oughtn’t to have taken it without asking, I know, but you were in bed and—”