"Oh, they wouldn't forbid you," said Amy, with hasty politeness.

The boy smiled in a superior way. "They _might_" he said. "Nurses generally do. We are not particularly good, and nurses are so narrow-minded."

"We are reckless," said the girl. "Our names are Dot and Dash."

"They're pretty good names," said Tom.

"They fit us," said the twins in a breath.

"Both of we were taken out of church last Sunday," said Dot, in an explanatory way and with an air of pride. "When the clergyman came from inside the railings, Dash forgot he was in church, and he jumped up and said quite loud, 'Shut the gate.'"

"Whatever for?" said Tom.

"You see," said Dash, with his air of modest pride, "I always spend the time thinking how many sheep I could pen into the pews, and how many cows I could get behind the railings. I think it could be seventeen _with a squash_, but of course, if you left the gate open, the cows would get into the sheep pens; so, when I saw him go out and leave the bar up, I felt I must run and shut it, and I spoke out loud. I didn't really mean to, but father marched us out of church, and he wouldn't let me explain."

"I suppose you oughtn't to have been thinking of cows and sheep in church," said Amy, in her surprised little voice.

"Shut up, Miss Prig," said Dash; and Amy was obediently silent.

"Shall we play together?" said the twins, with one voice.

"It would be jolly," said Tom.--"Wouldn't it, Susie?"

"Well, you mustn't tell your people," they said, "but every morning after your babies go in we might have a jolly game."

"Mother wouldn't mind, would she, Susie?" said Amy.

"We don't want your opinion," said Tom loftily.

Amy blushed till the tears came. "Would she?" she repeated desperately.

"There's no harm in playing," said Susie.

All her good resolutions were slipping away, and her voice grew excited.

Susie was always so carried away by the spirit of adventure, and she forgot so easily. These sands, and the silver sea full of monsters! The black rocks and seaweed--no nurse to bother about wet stockings--no babies who needed a good example! Susie's spirits rose.

"There wouldn't be any harm," she cried eagerly, "and we might have some jolly games. We only wouldn't tell mother, because it might worry her."

"Mother can walk on the rocks," cried Amy eagerly.

"I don't believe it," said Dash. "I don't believe an old woman like that can walk a bit--not like we can."

"Not as fast as us," said Susie.--"Don't be tiresome, Amy; it isn't mother who is tiresome--it's nurse."

"Well, we'll meet to-morrow," said the twins, speaking together, as they generally did, at the top of rather squeaky voices.

They pulled Susie to one side.

"Don't tell the other one," they said, in hoa.r.s.e whispers; "she'd go and tell."

"She's very young," said Susie, in quick apology, as she ran off.

"Both of we has pails," shouted the twins after her, "and we can bring cake."

"We are not allowed curranty cake," said Susie reluctantly.

"Bosh," said the twins. "Who's to know? We come of a very gouty family, and _we_ may eat curranty cake."

"I dare say a little piece wouldn't matter," said Susie.

"O Susie," said Amy, as she plodded breathlessly over the sand to the steps, "she called mother an old woman!"

"Well?" said Susie.

"She is the most young and the most beautiful lady I have ever seen,"

said Amy, with flushed cheeks.

"Yes, of course," said Susie.

"They seemed rather rude," said Amy.

"It isn't being rude, it's being _reckless_. Didn't you hear them say so?"

"Aren't they the same, Susie?"

"Not at all," said Susie, with her nose in the air. "It's _older_ to be reckless; it's much easier to be rude. But you mustn't tell, Amy."

"O Susie, I'll try not," said Amy; "but when mother asks me I don't know what to do."

"Well, you can hold your tongue," said Susie sharply.

CHAPTER VI.

Susie felt a little excited next morning when she remembered the twins, and all the time she was digging moats and piling up sand castles she had one eye fixed on the active figures of her new friends, who, with bare legs and shrill voices, attracted a good deal of attention. Once she tried timidly to "draw" nurse on the subject, but nurse was not responsive.

"Those are rather splendid children," she said wistfully.

"Where?" said nurse, lifting a calculating eye from the heel of the stocking she was knitting, and looking vaguely round the horizon.

"There--on the rock," said Susie eagerly. "Tom and I want to go on the rocks so much, and those children could help us; they are so very--so very _reckless_."

"So very rude," said nurse dispa.s.sionately.

The very words Amy had used. The angry blood flew into Susie's face.