conscience had a great
power over him; but the beautiful sea was tempting, each wave as it
fell produced a sound which was sweeter to his ears than the
sweetest music.

"Your mother has forbidden you to go;" said his conscience; "you
must obey her."

He continued to remain undecided between pleasure and duty, the
strife going on meanwhile within him. All at once, he espied on his
extreme left four small boys about his size, who were coming out of
the water. How they laughed; how joyful they seemed to be; how they
made the water splash and foam around them. Frank immediately began
to run at full speed towards them, and covered the space of sand
which separated him from the little boys in two minutes. He arrived
breathless near the group of children who were dressing themselves.
He looked at them, and was asking himself if he must go nearer to
them, when one of the group looked at him with a surly air. Little
Frank translated this into: "What business have you here?" and
retreated.

He began to examine the man who was looking for sand-eels. The
fisherman was digging in the gravel with a spade, and now and then a
few of the little fishes were dislodged from their hiding place.
They wriggled in such a lively fashion that Frank was greatly
amused, and forgot, for a time, all about his first desire of a run
in the sea.

He laughed aloud when he saw a big sand-eel, bigger than any which
the man had yet captured--for he took the trouble to go and see in
his basket--escape into the water and swim out of the man's reach.

The fisherman was evidently annoyed at having lost this fine
specimen, and when he saw this little fellow laughing, and standing
quite close to his basket, he grew angry, and in a rough tone of
voice, speaking in Guernsey French, he exclaimed: "Begone, you
impudent little rascal."

Now, little Frank did not know French, and consequently did not
understand a single word of what this man said, but he hastily
retreated. "He must have uttered something terrible," he said to
himself; "what an ugly face. Why is this man vexed with me? I have
done nothing to grieve him; only bent over his basket and laughed
when I saw that fish escape; but why did not the man laugh also? It
was so amusing."

He looked round to see whether he could discover any of those little
boys who had attracted his attention when he was in the road, but
none of them were visible. There were a few persons here and there,
but no one was