one out there by a sudden thought of Mr.
Mildmay's, the Portscale clergyman I told you of, who had mentioned in
talking that he had not been there for some time.

'And it is a very fine mild day,' he said. 'It doesn't take twenty
minutes in a boat. If you don't think it would hurt you, Mr. Vane?'

Mr. Vane was delighted. There was a good deal of the boy about him
still; he loved anything in the shape of a bit of fun, and he loved
boating. So off the two came, and were most pleasantly welcomed by old
Tobias and his second-in-command at the lighthouse. And by another happy
chance, just as Biddy began to wade, Mr. Vane had come to the side of
the lantern-room looking over in her direction.

'What can that be, moving slowly through that bit of water?' he said to
Tobias. 'I am rather near-sighted. Is it a porpoise?'

'Nay, nay, sir, not at this season,' replied the old man; 'besides it's
far too shallow for anything like that, though there is a deepish hole
near the middle.'

He strolled across to where Mr. Vane was standing as he spoke, and
stared out where his visitor pointed to. Then suddenly he flung open one
of the glazed doors and stepped on to the round balcony--perhaps that is
not the right word to use for a lighthouse, but I do not know any
other--outside, followed by Mr. Vane. Just then Biddy's screams came
shrilly through the clear afternoon air, for it was a still day, and out
at the lighthouse, when there was no noise of wind and waves, there was
certainly nothing else to disturb the silence except perhaps the cry of
a sea-gull overhead, or now and then the sound of the fishermen's voices
as they passed by in their boats. And just now the waves were a long way
out and the winds were off I know not where--all the better for the poor
silly child, who, having got herself into this trouble, could do nothing
but scream shrilly and yet more shrilly in her terror.

Old Tobias turned and looked at Mr. Vane.

'It's a child, 'pon my soul, it's a child,' he exclaimed, and he sprang
inside again and made for the ladder leading downstairs. But quick as he
was, his visitor was before him. People talk of the miraculous quickness
of a mother's ears; a father's, I think, are sometimes quite as acute,
and Bridget's father loved dearly his self-willed, tiresome,
queer-tempered little girl. Long before he got to the top of the ladder
he knew more than old Tobias, more than any of them--Mr. Mildmay or
young Williams, the othe