ISOBEL found her "I thought you'd be coming out soon," announced Belle, "so I just stopped about till I saw you. We're all starting off to play cricket again on the common down under the cliffs, and I want you to go with us. I've taken such a fancy to you! I told mother I had, and she laughed and said it wouldn't last long; but I know it will. I feel as if you were going to be my bosom friend. You'll come, won't you?" "Of course I will," replied Isobel, accepting the offered friendship with rapture. "Mother told me to do what I liked this morning." "Let us be quick, then. The others have run on in front, but we'll soon catch them up." "Yes; we call it our club ground. We mean to have matches there almost every day. It'll be ever such fun. You see there are several families of us staying at Silversands that all know one another, so we've joined ourselves together in a club. We call it 'The United Sea Urchins' Recreation Society,' and it's not to be only for cricket, because we mean to play rounders and hockey as well, and to go out boating, and have shrimping parties on the sands. We arranged it last night after tea. There are just twenty of us, if you count the Wrights' baby, so that makes quite enough to get up all sorts of games. Hugh Rokeby's the president, and Charlie Chester's secretary, and Charlotte Wright's treasurer. We each pay twopence a week subscription, and at the end of the holiday we're going to have what the boys call a 'regular blow-out' with the funds—ginger beer, you know, and cakes, and ices if we can afford it. I wanted to make the subscription sixpence, but Letty Rokeby said the little ones couldn't give so much. I'll ask them to elect you a member. You'd like to join, wouldn't you?" "Immensely. But I haven't any money with me now." The party of children who were assembled upon the green patch of common certainly appeared to be a very jolly one. First there were the Rokebys, a large and tempestuous family of seven, who were staying at a farm on the cliffs by the wood. "A thoroughly healthy place," as Mrs. Rokeby often remarked, "with a good water supply, and no danger of catching anything infectious. We've really been so unfortunate. Hugh and Letty took scarlet fever at the lodgings in Llandudno last year, and I had the most dreadful time nursing them; Winnie and Arnold had mumps at Scarborough the year before; and the three youngest were laid up with German measles at Easter in the Isle of Man; so it has made me quite nervous." Just at present the Rokebys did not seem in danger of contracting anything more serious than colds or sprained ankles, for a more reckless crew in the way of falling into wet pools, climbing slippery rocks, or generally endangering their lives and limbs could not be imagined. It was in vain that poor Mrs. Rokeby "I really do my best to keep them tidy," sighed Mrs. Rokeby pathetically to Mrs. Barrington. "Their father grumbles horribly at the bills, but they seem to wear their clothes out as fast as I buy them. Bertie's new Norfolk suit is shabby already, and Winnie's Sunday frock isn't fit to be seen. As to their boots, I sometimes think I shall have to let them go bare-foot. Other people's children don't seem to give half the trouble that mine do. Look at them now—dragging Lulu down the sands, when I told them she mustn't get overheated on any account! The doctor said we were to be so careful of her, and keep her quiet; but it seems no use—she will run after the others. Oh dear! I can't allow them to turn her head over heels like that!" And Mrs. Rokeby flew to the rescue of her delicate youngest, administering a vigorous scolding to the elder ones, which apparently made as little impression upon them as water on a duck's back. The untidy "You never see Charlotte Wright with her dress torn to ribbons, or her hair in her eyes," she would remonstrate with Letty and Winnie. "Both she and Aggie can wear their sailor blouses for three days, while yours aren't fit to be seen at the end of a morning." "The Wrights are so stupid," replied Winnie, "you can hardly get them to have any fun at all. They spend nearly the whole time with that mademoiselle they've brought with them. They're so proud of her, they do nothing but let off French remarks just to try to impress us. She's only a holiday governess too—they don't have her when they're at home—so there's no need for them to give themselves such airs about it. I believe their French isn't anything much either, they put in so many English words." "Arthur Wright actually brings his books down on to the shore," said Letty, "and does Greek and Euclid half the morning. He says he's working for a scholarship. You wouldn't catch Hugh or Cecil at that." "No, thank you!" said Winnie, pulling a wry face. "No holiday lessons for me. I loathe French, and I never can understand a single word that mademoiselle says, so it's no use. If the Wrights like to sit on the sand and 'parlez-vous,' they may. They're so fat, they can't rush about like we do. That's why they keep so tidy. Charlotte's waist is exactly twice as big as mine—we measured them yesterday with a piece of string—and Aggie's cheeks are as round as puddings. You should see how they all pant when they play cricket. They scarcely get any runs." "And they really eat far more even than we do, mother," said Letty. "Aggie had five buns on the shore yesterday, and Eric took sixteen biscuits. I know he did, for we counted them, and he nearly emptied the box." "The Chesters are five times as jolly," declared Winnie. "Both Charlie and Hilda went out shrimping with us this morning, and got sopping wet, but The unlucky little Barringtons were possessed of parents who clung to theories which they themselves described as "wholesome ideas," and their friends denounced as "absurd cranks." Many and various were the experiments which they tried upon their children's health and education, sometimes with rather disastrous results. Being at present enthusiastic members of a "No Breakfast League," which held that two meals a day were amply sufficient for the requirements of any rational human being, they had limited their family repasts to luncheon and supper, at which only vegetarian dishes were permitted to appear; and the poor children, hungry with sea air and with running about on the sands, who would have enjoyed an unstinted supply of butcher's meat and bread and butter, were carefully dieted on plasmon, prepared nuts, and many patent foods, which their mother measured out in exact portions, keeping a careful record in her diary of the amount they were allowed to consume, and taking the pair to be weighed "It's all right for the seaside," grumbled Ruth to her intimate friends, "because we can go into the water without minding getting into a mess; but we have to wear exactly the same in town, and it's horrible. You can't think how every one stares at as, just as if we were a show. Sometimes ladies stop us, and ask our governess if we've lost our hats, and hadn't she better tie our handkerchiefs over our heads? We shouldn't dare to go out alone even if we were allowed, we look so queer. We went once to the post by ourselves, and some rude boys chased us all the way, calling out 'Bare-legs!' It's dreadfully cold in winter, too, without stockings, and when it rains our heads get wet through, and we have to be dried with towels when we come in again. I wonder why we can't be dressed like other people. I wish I had Belle Stuart's clothes; they're perfectly lovely!" Ruth's rather pathetic little face always bore the injured expression of one who cherishes a grievance. She was a thin, pale child, who did not look as though she flourished upon her peculiar system of bringing up, which seemed to have the unfortunate "It's too disgusting!" said Ruth dolefully. "Just when Edna and I had been looking forward all the term to the boys coming home, and making so many plans of what we would do and the fun we would have, some wretched person sent father a copy of The Educational Times, with a long account of this horrid walking-tour, and he said it was the exact thing for Clifford and Keith, and insisted upon arranging it at once. I think mother was really dreadfully disappointed. I believe she wanted to have them home as much as we did, because she said they ought to go to the dentist's, and she must look over their clothes, and she should like to give them No greater contrast could be found to the Barringtons than the Chester children. Charlie, the elder, a lively young pickle of twelve, was on terms of great intimacy with all the fishermen and sailor boys whose acquaintance he could cultivate, talking in a learned manner of main-sheets, fore-stays, jibs, gaffs, booms and bowsprits, and using every nautical term he could manage to pick up. He had a very good idea of rowing, and would often persuade the men to let him go out with them in their boats, taking his turn at an oar, much to their amusement, and setting log lines with the serious air of a practised hand. His jolly, friendly ways won him general favour, and he was allowed to make himself at home on many of He was the envy of his eight-year-old sister Hilda, who would have liked to follow him through thick and thin, but the sailors drew the line at little girls, and would politely request "missy" to "return At the end of a morning on the common Isobel found herself on quite an intimate footing with the Wrights, the Rokebys, the Barringtons, and the Chesters, besides being a duly elected member of "The United Sea Urchins' Recreation Society." "I've never had such fun in my life," she confided to her mother at dinner-time. "We played cricket, and then we went along the shore, because the tide was so low. I picked up the most beautiful screw shells, and razor shells, and fan shells you ever saw. I had to put them in my pocket handkerchief because I hadn't a basket with me. Bertie Rokeby got into a quicksand up to his knees, and Lulu sat down in the water in her clothes. You must come and see our club ground, mother, when you can walk so far. We have it quite to ourselves, for it's right behind the cliff, and none of the other visitors seem to have found it out yet; and if anybody else tries to take it, the boys say they mean to turn them off, because we got it first. They're all going to carry their tea there this afternoon, and light a fire of drift-wood to boil the kettle. So may I go too, and then we shall play cricket again in the evening?" |