ly laugh--before this year passed I did not believe he knew any
more how to laugh--what you can call laugh!"

It is quite true. I had made some droll remark about Tanty and Cousin
Sophia, and when he laughed he looked like a young man.

He was quick enough in grasping at a pretext for keeping me yet
another day. Yesterday the wind having suddenly abated in the night,
there was quite a bevy of little fishing-boats sailing merrily away.
And the causeway at low water was quite visible. As we looked out I
know the same idea came to both our minds, though there was no word
between us. At last it was I who spoke. "The crossing is quite safe,"
said I. And I added, as he answered nothing, "I almost wish now it was
not. How quick the time has gone by, here!"

His countenance when I looked up was darker. He kept his eyes fixed in
the distance. At last he said in a low voice:

"Yes, I suppose it is high time you should go back."

"I am sure I don't wish it," I said quite frankly--he is not the sort
of man with whom one would ever think of _minauderie_, "but Madeleine
will be miserable about me."

"And so you would really care to stop here," said he, with a smile of
wonder on his face, "if it were not for that reason?"

"Naturally I would," said I. "I feel already as cosy as a tame cat
here. And if it were not for Madeleine, poor little Madeleine, who
must be breaking her heart!--But then how can I go back?--I have no
wraps and only one shoe?"

His face had cleared again. He was walking up and down in his usual
way, whilst I hopped back, with more limping than was at all
necessary, to my favourite arm-chair.

"True, true," he said, as if speaking to himself, "you cannot walk,
with one shoe and a bandaged foot. And your clothes are too thin for
the roundabout sea journey in this cold wind. This is what we shall
do, child," he went on, coming up to me with a sage expression that
struggled with his evident eager desire. "Rene shall go off, as soon
as the tide permits, carrying the good news of your safety to your
sister, and bring back some warm things for you to wear to-morrow
morning, and I shall write to Rupert to send a carriage, to wait for
you on the strand."

And so, pleased like two children who have found a means of securing a
further holiday, we wrote both our letters. I wonder whether it
occurred to Sir Adrian, as it did to me, that, if we had been so very
anxious that I should be restored to the care of Pulwick