he repeated. "They're kind 'ere. If they'll keep us we can
look about an' make inquiries."

"But we must get to the Island."

"The Island? Oh, yes, I dessay we'll get there sometime or another.
What're you doin'?" she asked, for he had leapt out of bed and run to
the window.

"Looking for it."

But the Island was not visible. This gable of the house fronted a steep
coombe, which doubtless wound its way to the sea, since far to the right
a patch of sea shone beyond a notch in the enfolding slopes.

"It'll stay there, don't you fret," Tilda promised. "'Wish I could be
as sure that _we'd_ stay _'ere_: though, far as I can see, we're safe
enough for a few days. The old lady's puzzled about me. I reckon she
don't attend circuses--nor the Minister neither--an' that Child-Acrobat
turn fairly fetched 'em. They set it down to the 'fects of grace. I
'eard them talkin' it over, an' that was 'ow the Minister put it--
whatever 'e meant."

"Well, but wasn't it?"

Arthur Miles had come back from the window, and stood at the foot of the
bed in a nightshirt many sizes too large for him.

"Wasn't it _wot?_"

"Hadn't--hadn't it anything to do with the praying?"

"Garn!" Tilda chuckled. "But I'm glad it took _you_ in too.
The foolishness was my overdoin' it with 'Dolph. Dogs don't 'ave any
religion, it seems; and it rattled 'em a bit, 'is be'avin' like a person
that 'ad just found salvation. The Minister talked some science about
it to Mother Tossell--said as 'ow dogs 'adn't no souls but a 'eap of
_sympathy_; and it ended by 'er 'avin' a good cry over me when she
tucked me up for the night, an' sayin' as after all I might be a brand
plucked from the burnin'. But it didn' take in Miss Chrissy, as I could
tell from the look in 'er eyes."

Whatever Miss Chrissy's doubts may have been, she chose a curious and
perhaps a subtle method of expressing them. After breakfast she took
Tilda to her room, and showed her a small volume with a cloth binding
printed over with blue forget-me-nots and a gilt title, _The Lady's
Vade-Mecum, or How to Shine in Society_. It put forth a preface in
which a lady, who signed herself "One of the Upper Ten Thousand" but
gave no further clue to her identity, undertook (as she put it)
"to steer the aspirant through the shoals and cross-currents which beset
novitiate in the _haut-ton_;" and Miss Chrissy displayed the manual
shyly, explaining that she had bought it in Taunton, and in a fooli