he cliff, Dash and Dot burst round the corner of the rocks, and
almost without a word spoken, Susie's shoes and stockings were flung to
the winds, and she was scampering at headlong speed from pool to pool,
with Tom at her heels--like a wild creature, and in a condition that
would have fairly horrified poor nurse, who held that all well-conducted
young ladies, like the Queen of Spain, should have no visible legs!

Really, in her heart, Susie did not like the twins so very much. They
were wild and unkempt, and very boisterous; their twinkling black eyes
radiated mischief, but it was the sort of mischief that bewildered Susie
and rather frightened her. Nurse puzzled over her mangled stockings and
the hideous rents in her skirts, and Mrs. Beauchamp's patient fingers
grew stiff with darning; but whilst Susie flew about the rocks, careless
and dishevelled, she always forgot how sorry she was going to be
afterwards, and how uncomfortable her conscience was at night.

"I really won't go again," she said to herself time after time; and yet
the first sight of the twins splashing round the rocks scattered all her
good resolutions to the winds.

"I am glad I can trust you," her mother often said. "You are a comfort to
me."

"Troublesome comforts I should call them," nurse said; and, like many of
nurse's wise sayings, it was remembered by Susie, and left a little sting
in her memory.

This afternoon she came to the beach quite resolved to withstand
temptation, and to play demurely with the little ones. It had rained all
morning, and now Tom had gone to the town with his mother to buy some new
sand-shoes. For some time Susie was perfectly happy building castles of
sand and letting the rising tide flow into her moat. Nurse was indulgent
enough to waste a few of her valuable minutes in making a scarlet flag
and mounting it on a wooden knitting-pin, whilst Dick and Amy busily
ornamented its base with fan shells. Dick was the king, with Alick for
his knight--rather a top-heavy knight, with wayward legs--and Susie and
Amy were the besieging army, fighting with desperate courage as long as
they had breath.

Susie flung herself panting on the sand. "Isn't it funny, nurse," she
said, "that all the bad men were good kings, and all the good men had to
be beheaded?"

"I don't know much about any king, Miss Susie," said nurse, "except King
Henry the Eighth, and _his_ beheading was on the other side. He was a bad
man if you like, and I n