sed smile with which she had first
greeted me, and a weight of anxiety was partially removed, for it had
now become quite evident to me that I was as much in love as any
swain of eighteen--it had become quite evident that without Winifred
the poor little shattered sea-gull must perish altogether. She was
literally my world.

Frank came and sat down with us, and made himself as agreeable as
possible. He tried to enter into our play, but we were too slow for
him; he soon became restless and impatient. 'Oh bother!' he said, and
got up and left us.

I drew a sigh of relief when he was gone.

'Do you like my brother, Winifred?' I said.

'Yes.' she said.

'Why?'

'Because he is so pretty and so nimble. I believe he could run
up--' and then she stopped; but I knew what the complete sentence
would have been. She was going to say: 'I believe he could run up the
gangways without stopping to take breath.'

Here was a stab; but she did not notice the effect of her unfinished
sentence. Then a question came from me involuntarily.

'Winifred,' I said, 'do you like him as well as you like me?'

'Oh no,' she said, in a tone of wonderment that such a question
should be asked.

'But _I_ am not pretty and--'

'Oh, but you _are_!' she said eagerly, interrupting me.

'But,' I said, with a choking sensation in my voice, 'I am lame.' and
I looked at the crutches lying among the ferns beside me.

'Ah, but I like you all the better for being lame,' she said,
nestling up to me.

'But you like nimble boys,' I said, 'such as Frank.'

She looked puzzled. The anomaly of liking nimble boys and crippled
boys at the same time seemed to strike her. Yet she felt it _was_ so,
though it was difficult to explain it.

'Yes, I _do_ like nimble boys,' she said at last, plucking with her
fingers at a blade of grass she held between her teeth. 'But I think
I like lame boys better, that is if they are--if they are--_you_.'

I gave an exclamation of delight. But she was two years younger than
I, and scarcely, I suppose, understood it.

'He is very pretty,' she said meditatively, 'but he has not got
love-eyes like you and Snap, and I don't think I could love any
little boy so very, _very_ much now who wasn't lame.'

She loved me in spite of my lameness; she loved me because I was
lame, so that if I had not fallen from the cliffs, if I had sustained
my glorious position among the boys of Raxton and Graylingham as
'Fighting Hal.' I might neve