e it's _your_ Island?"

"You wait till we get to Stratford and ask him," said the boy, nodding,
bright and confident.

"Arsk'oo? Shakespeare? Sakes alive, child! Don't yer know 'e's been
dead these 'undreds o' years?"

"Has he?" His face fell, but after a moment grew cheerful again.
"But that needn't matter. There must be heaps of people left to tell us
about it."

Tilda closed the book. She had learnt a little, but had been
disappointed in more. She felt desperately sorry for the child with
this craze in his head about an Island. She had a suspicion that the
memories he related were all mixed up with fictions from the play.
As she put it to herself, "'E don't mean to kid, but 'e can't 'elp
'isself." But there was one question she had omitted and must yet ask.

"You said, jus' now, you used to play by the sea, somewheres beneath
that line o' white houses you was tellin' of. Well, you couldn' a-got
down there on your own, at that age--could yer, now? W'ich means you
must a-been carried."

"I suppose so."

"No supposin' about it. You _must_ a-been. Wot's more, you talked
about the waves comin' in an' not reachin'--'us,' you said. 'Oo was it
with yer? Think now! Man or woman?"

"A woman," he answered after a pause, knitting his brows.

"Wot like?"

Then happened something for which--so quiet his words had been--Tilda
was in no wise prepared. He turned his eyes on her, and they were as
the eyes of a child born blind; blank, yet they sought; tortured, yet
dry of tears. His head was tilted back, and a little sideways. So may
you see an infant's as he nuzzles to his mother's breast. The two hands
seemed to grope for a moment, then fell limp at his side.

"Oh, 'ush!" besought Tilda, though in fact he had uttered no sound.
"'Ush, an' put on your shirt, an' come 'ome! We'll get Mrs. Mortimer to
dry it off by the stove."

She helped him on with it, took him by the hand, and led him back
unresisting.

They reached the canal bank in time to see Sam Bossom leading Old
Jubilee down the towpath, on his way to borrow a cart at Ibbetson's.
And 'Dolph--whom Tilda had left with strict orders to remain on board--
no sooner caught sight of the children than he leapt ashore and came
cringing.

The dog appeared to be in mortal terror; a terror at which the children
no longer wondered as they drew near the boat. Terrible sounds issued
from the cabin--cries of a woman imploring mercy, fierce guttural oat