hink they might 'avite me sometimes, and when I said to her
just now I'd like to come, she looked quite funny and only said she'd
ask her mother. Not a bit as if she'd like it.'

Rosalys felt very vexed.

'Really, Biddy, you might know how to behave,' she said. 'People don't
offer themselves to other people like that.'

'They do,' Bride retorted. 'I've heard papa say he was going to "offer
himself to luncheon" to Aunt Mary's, and----'

'She's a relation,' Alie interrupted.

'Well, and once mamma offered herself to tea to old Lady Butler--I know
she did--just before we went away at Christmas.'

'That's quite different; she knows old Lady Butler so
well--and--and--mamma's grown up and knows what's right, and you're a
little girl, and you shouldn't do things like that without asking
leave,' said Rosalys decidedly.

'You're a cross unkind thing,' said Biddy; 'and if you speak like that
I'll not go on being good any more.'

Then she turned away from her sister and ran down a side-path of the
garden, leaving Rosalys looking after her in distress, and half inclined
to blame herself for having spoken sharply to Biddy. 'It will vex mamma
so if this new plan doesn't do,' she thought regretfully. 'But perhaps
Biddy will be good again when she comes in.'

The path down which the little girl had run led to a low wall from which
you overlooked the sea. The tide was in, and though at some little
distance from the Rectory, Biddy could clearly see the water shining in
the morning sunshine, which was yellower and richer in colour now, for
the season was getting on; the cold thin wintry look was giving place in
this sheltered spot to the warmer feeling of spring. The little waves
came lapping in softly; by listening intently and fancying a little,
Biddy could almost hear the delicate sound they made as they kissed the
shore.

'I wish it was warm enough to bathe,' thought Biddy. 'But if it was
_they'd_ be sure to say I mustn't, or that I was naughty or something,'
and in her anger at the imaginary cruelty of 'they,' she kicked the
little stones of the gravel at her feet as if it was their fault! But
the little stones were too meek to complain, and Biddy got tired of
kicking them, and seating herself astride on the wall, sat staring out
at the sea. Somehow it reminded her of her good resolutions, though it
was a quite different-looking sea from the evening tide, with the red
sun sinking below the horizon, like that first time on