, coughed, opened and shut
her parasol, taken off her gloves and put them on again, thereby
exhibiting the small turquoise ring that was her greatest delight, and
finally even got up a sneeze, all without any result, she at last pulled
off her bracelet, and in refastening it managed with considerable skill
to let it drop on the ground and roll almost to her companion's feet. It
was but natural that he should pick it up and hand it to her.

"Oh, thank you so much!" exclaimed Belle, in what some one had once
called her "Parisian" manner. "It was so careless of me to drop it, and
I wouldn't have lost it for the world. Things so easily roll away on the
shore, don't they?"

"I suppose they do," replied the colonel. "It certainly isn't wise to
send your trinkets spinning about the sands."

"I value that one, too," said Belle, shaking her curls, "because, you
see, it was a present. A friend of mother's gave it to me on my last
birthday. He was going to choose a book at first--he always sent me
books before, the most terrible ones: Shakespeare, and Lamb's 'Essays,'
and Ruskin, and stupid things like that, which I shan't ever care to
read, even when I'm grown up--so this birthday I asked him if he would
give me something really nice; and he laughed, and brought me this dear
little bangle, and said he expected it would suit Miss Curly-locks
better than solid reading."

"Ugh!" grunted her new acquaintance, with so ambiguous an expression
that Belle could not make out whether he sympathized or not; but as he
put down his paper, and seemed quite ready to listen to her, she went
on.

"It's very nice at Silversands. Mother and I have been here nearly a
fortnight. We think the air's bracing, and the lodgings are really not
bad for a little place like this. One doesn't expect a hotel."

"Are you staying in Marine Terrace?"

"Yes; it's the nicest part, because you get the view of the sea. I don't
like the rooms near the station at all. Mother looked at some of them
first, but there were such dreadfully vulgar children stopping there.
'This won't do, Belle,' she said. 'I couldn't have you in the same house
with people of that sort.'"

"Is your name Belle?"

"Yes, Isabelle Stuart; but it's generally shortened to Belle. Mother
says a pet name somehow seems to suit me better. Last winter I went to a
party dressed all in blue, and everybody called me 'Little Bluebell,'
and asked if I came from fairyland."

She paused here, thinki