ull of clean clothing, but glancing at the table she threw them above
her head, and regardless of the scattered garments cried out:

"Denas! Look to the loaf! Some poor ship be in distress! Pray God it
be not your father's."

Then Denas with trembling hands lifted the loaf, which she had
inadvertently laid down wrong side upward, and placed it, with a "God
save the ship and all in her," in the proper position. But Joan was
thoroughly unnerved by the ominous incident, and she sat down with her
apron over her head, rocking herself slowly to her inaudible prayer;
while Denas, with a resentful feeling she did not try to understand,
gathered up the pieces of linen and flannel her mother had apparently
forgotten.

Into this scene stepped a young man in the Burrell Court livery. He
gave Denas a letter, but refused the offer of a cup of tea, because
"the storm was hurrying landward, and he would be busy all to catch
the cliff-top before it caught him."

Joan took no notice of the interruption, and Denas felt her trouble
over such a slight affair as a turned loaf to be almost a personal
offence. In a short time she said: "Mother, your tea is waiting; and I
have a letter from Mrs. Burrell, if you care anything about it."

"Aw, my girl, I care little for Mrs. Burrell's letters to-night. She
be well and happy, no doubt; and my old dear is in the wind's teeth
and pulling hard against a frosty death."

"Father knows the sky and the sea, and I think it is cruel hard of him
to take such risks."

"And where will the fishers be who do take no risks? Fish be plenty
just before a storm, and the London market-boat waiting for the take;
and why wouldn't the men do their duty, danger or no danger?"

"I would rather die than be a fisher's wife."

"Aw, my girl, the heart for one isn't in you."

"I never saw you so nervous before, mother."

"Nervous! Nervous! No, my dear, it be downright fear. I never knew
what fear was before. I've gone down-daunted--that be the trouble,
Denas. I've had such dreams lately--such creepy-like, ghastly old
dreams of wandering in wayless ways covered with water; of seeing the
hearth-place full of cold ashes and the lights put out; and of
carrying the 'Grief Child' in my breast, a puny, wailing bit of a baby
that I could not be rid of, nor yet get away from--sights and sounds
after me night and day that do give me a turn to think of; and what
they do mean I haven't mind-light for to see. God help us! But