ch
blue whites, looking so strange in this setting. The cheeks, moreover,
were not rosy like those of his cousin Jinny, nor rounded in their
contours--the chin was too pointed; yet even as John looked a sudden
dimple flashed there, and a smile, swift and mischievous, lit up the
whole face. Then he did not feel quite so sure.

[Illustration: GOLDEN SALLY
"I hope ye'll know me again," said the girl]

"What in the name of fortune are you doing here?" he asked abruptly,
almost roughly, for the smile nettled him. "Can't you find some better
place than this to do your dressing in?"

"If I didn't comb my hair i' th' sandhills I wouldn't comb it at all,"
she returned. "It's the on'y place I have to do onythin' in. Mony a
time when th' owd lad is fuddled, me an' my Aunt Nancy sleep on 'em."

"Sleep out o' doors!" ejaculated John, much scandalised.

"Aye, oftener than not, I can tell you. Tisn't so very coomfortable
when theer's snow about--though we mak' up a bit o' fire an' that; but
it's reet enough this time o' year. Aye, I like to lay awake lookin'
up at the stars, an' listenin' to the wayter yon. The rabbits coom
dancin' round us, an' th' birds fly ower we'r 'eads when the leet
cooms. It's gradely."

John slowly lowered himself down on the sand beside her, as if to
endeavour to look on this strange aspect of life from her level. His
respectable commercial soul was shocked, but he was nevertheless
interested.

"My word!" he ejaculated; and then, after a pause, "What's your name,
if I may ask?"

"Sally."

"Sally? It's a good enough name. What's th' other one?"

"I haven't got no other one as I ever heerd on. My uncle's Jim
Whiteside, an' soom folks call'n me Sally Whiteside, an' then he gets
mad an' says 'tisn't none o' my name. An' soom folks call'n me 'Cockle
Sally.' Aye, that's what they call'n me mostly."

Dickinson looked at her disapprovingly. He had heard of the wild,
disreputable "Cockle Folk" who roamed about the sandhills; who were
worse than tramps in the opinion of respectable people, and who had,
many of them, no fixed abode of any kind.

"Well," he remarked, "it's a pity. I could ha' wished ye'd ha'
belonged to different folks. I don't hold with these cocklers. They're
a rough lot, ar'n't they?"

The girl laughed.

"My Aunt Nancy says I'm as rough as ony mysel'. Would ye like soom
cockles?" she asked, breaking off suddenly. "I'd fetch ye soom
to-morrow if I've ony luck. They're chep enough--a