ould escape her;
and after that she beat the boundaries of the land.

"No, there is not a creature in sight except ourselves and Laddie,"
she answered.

"Very well," answered Phillis promptly. "Then, if it be all safe, and
the Hadleigh wits are away wool gathering, and you will not tell
mother, I mean to have a race with Dulce, as far as we can run along
the shore; and if I do not win----" And here she pursed up her lips
and left her sentence unfinished, as though determined to be
provoking.

"We shall see about that," returned Dulce, accepting the challenge in
a moment; for she was always ready to follow a good lead.

"Oh, you foolish children?" observed Nan, in her staid fashion. But
she did not offer the slightest remonstrance, knowing of old that
unless Phillis found some safety-valve she would probably wax
dangerous. So she called Laddie to her, and held him whining and
struggling, for he wanted to stretch his little legs too; thinking a
race was good for dogs as well as for girls. But Nan would not hear of
it for a moment: he might trip them up and cause another sprained
ankle.

"Now, Nan, you must be umpire, and say, One, two, three!" And Nan
again obeys, and then watches them with interest. Oh, how pretty it
was, if only any one could have seen it, except the crabs and the
star-fish, and they never take much notice: the foreground of the
summer sea coming up with little purple rushes and a fringe of foam;
the yellow sand, jagged, uneven, with salt-water pools here and there;
the two girls in their light dresses skimming over the ground with
swift feet, skirting the pools, jumping lightly over stones, even
climbing a breakwater, then running along another level piece of
sand,--Dulce a little behind, but Phillis as erect and sure-footed as
Atalanta.

Now Nan has lost them, and puts Laddie down and prepares to follow. In
spite of her staidness, she would have dearly loved a run too; only
she thinks of Dick, and forbears.

Dulce, who is out of breath, fears she must give up the race, and
begins to pant and drop behind in earnest, and to wish salt water were
fresh, and then to dread the next breakwater as a hopeless obstacle;
but Phillis, who is still as fresh as possible, squares her elbows as
she has seen athletes do, and runs lightly up to it, unmindful and
blissfully ignorant of human eyes behind a central hole.

Some one who is of a classical turn has been thinking of the daughter
of Iasus and Clymen