try.--You're surely not going, Belle.
Tea will be ready in a quarter of an hour. Mrs. Rokeby's boiling the
kettle on a spirit lamp over by the rocks."

"We don't want any, thank you," said Belle, rising from the boat and
brushing some sand off her dress. "Mrs. Oppenheim is going to take us to
tea at the new cafe. I hear they've capital ices and a band. The Wilsons
were telling me about it yesterday. They say you meet everybody there
from four to five o'clock."

"Shall I see you on the Parade this evening?" called Isobel, as Belle
strolled away in the direction of Silversands, her arm closely locked in
Blanche's.

"I don't think so," replied Belle, without turning her head, and saying
something in a whisper to Blanche, which evidently caused the latter
much amusement, for she broke into a suppressed peal of laughter, and
glancing round at Isobel, went along shaking her shoulders with mirth.

Isobel stood looking after the retreating couple with a lump in her
throat and a curious sick sensation in her heart. She could not yet
quite realize that Belle did not desire her companionship--only that
somehow Blanche had carried off her friend, and that everything was
completely spoilt. Between Blanche and herself she recognized there was
an instinctive hostility. Blanche had been so openly rude, and had
treated both her and the Sea Urchins with such evident contempt, that
Isobel, not usually a quarrelsome child, had felt all her spirit rise up
within her in passionate indignation.

"Why does she come here to make fun of us?" she asked herself hotly. "We
had such jolly times before. None of the others were ever nasty like
this--not even Aggie Wright or Hugh Rokeby. Why can't she keep with her
own family? And why, oh, why does Belle seem to like her so much?"

Next day being Sunday, Isobel only saw her friend at a distance in
church, Mrs. Stewart, who had a suspicion of what was happening,
suggesting that they should pass the afternoon with their books on the
cliffs, thinking it would be better to leave Belle severely alone, and
give no opportunity for a meeting. On this account she spent Monday in
Ferndale, asking Hilda Chester to accompany them, and taking the two
children to hear the band play on the pier, and to an entertainment
afterwards in the pavilion. The Rokebys came on Tuesday morning,
inviting Isobel to join them in a boating excursion, from which they did
not return until late in the evening, so that for the fi