LOVEDAY had been gone more than a week, Geoffrey was nearly well again, and Priscilla was on the mend—the dreadful pain in her head had almost left her, so had her other aches and , but the broken arm bothered her a good deal, and she was very weak and languid, so that it was still necessary that she should be kept very quiet and not be allowed to exert herself.  
She had reached the stage, though, when it becomes to keep still; when one wants to do things, yet feels one can’t; or others want one to do things, and one feels one cannot possibly do them, and altogether one is cross and teasy without knowing why.
 
To read made her head ache, and it was tiresome to hold up a book with only one hand, and to have none to turn the pages with; neither could she very well play with her dolls, or her bricks, or anything with but one hand. Her mother read to her sometimes, and talked to her; but, of course, she could not do so all the time, and Priscilla would have grown tired even if she could.
 
“Mother,” she said one day, after every one had tried to think of something to amuse her, “I know what I would like very, very much indeed!”
 
“Well, dear, tell me what it is?”
 
“I would like to ask Miss Potts to come and see me. I like her so much, and I think she must miss me, because I often went in to talk to her to cheer her up after I knew she was an ‘only’!”
 
“Very well, darling; I am going out presently, and I will ask her. I don’t quite know, though, how she could manage to leave her shop.”
 
“I don’t think it would matter much if she did—not if she came while the children are in school, ’cause there isn’t any one else to go and buy much—except on Saturdays.”
 
“I see. Well, I will go and talk to her about it, and see what she has to say.”
 
Priscilla had always felt to Miss Potts, the quiet, lonely woman who lived in a world of toys now, yet looked as though she had never been a child or played with any; and ever since Miss Potts had told her she was alone in the world, Priscilla had had quite a motherly feeling for her. She felt quite excited and pleased at the of her visitor.
 
She was so pleased, that she did not know how to wait until her mother came back with the answer to her message; and then she wished, oh so much, that she had asked if Miss Potts should be invited to tea with her. Never mind, she , she would ask mother that when she came back with her news. This thought comforted and her so much that she was able to lie still more , and wait, and while she was waiting, her thoughts flew to Loveday. She tried to picture what she would be doing at that moment. Loveday was not, of course, able to write much, for she was very young, and she had only just begun to write real letters; but Bessie had written a good deal about her and Aaron, and the fun they had; and mother had told her all she possibly could about the place, and the house, and the sea, and shops, and the station and everything else she could think of, and now Priscilla was looking forward to the time when she and Geoffrey would go down to Porthcallis and join Loveday.
 
She was just picturing to herself the journey down, and Loveday waiting for them on the platform, when she heard the front door opened and closed again.
 
“Mother must have got back already!” she cried . “I hope Miss Potts can come.”
 
Then she heard footsteps, and a moment later the door opened, and in came mother, followed by Miss Potts herself! Priscilla could scarcely believe her eyes.
 
“Here she is!” cried Mrs. Carlyon. “Here is your longed-for visitor. I would not let her stay even to put on her best , or her , or anything.”
 
“No; oh dear, no! I don’t know what a sight I am looking, I am sure!” said Miss Potts . “But your dear ma whisked me off, so I’d no time to change my frock or do anything but pop on my old second-best bonnet and shawl. I hope you’ll excuse me——”
 
Poor Miss Potts on volubly, not because she really minded much, but because she was shy and nervous, and sometimes shy and nervous people feel that they must keep on saying something.
 
Priscilla put out her hand to clasp Miss Potts’s hand, and then put up her face to be kissed. The tears came into Miss Potts’s faded, tired eyes as she stooped and kissed her.
 
“I think you are looking—oh, ever so nice!” said Priscilla warmly. “I like you in that bonnet better than any. I think it suits you better.”
 
“Do you really now, missie?” said Miss Potts, evidently relieved and pleased. “And how are you, dearie? Are you better?”
 
“Oh yes, thank you,” said Priscilla—“ever so much! I think I shall be quite well soon, and then we are going to Porthcallis.”
 
“Dear, dear,” cried Miss Potts, “that will be nice. Nobody could help getting well down there in the sunshine and sea-breezes.”
 
“Do you like the sea?” asked Priscilla. “Did you ever stay by it when you were a little girl?”
 
“Indeed, I did,” said Miss Potts. “I was born by it, and grew up by it till I was turned twenty.”
 
“You were born by the sea!” cried Priscilla. “Oh, how lovely—and I never knew it!”
 
Miss Potts at once became more interesting than ever. Priscilla tried to picture her digging in the sands and through the pools.
 
“But how could you bear to come away?” she cried. “I am sure I should never leave the sea if I could help it!”
 
“Ah, my dear, it all depends!” said Miss Potts, with a sad shake of the head. “I haven’t set eyes on the sea since I left it, and I—I hope I never do again. I couldn’t bear it, even now.”
 
“Oh, how sad!” said Priscilla, looking at her with wide eyes full of sympathetic interest. “Did your little brothers and sisters live there too?” she asked gently.
 
“Yes, missie, and died there,” said Miss Potts sadly. “Every one of us but mother and me; that’s why I’ve never looked on it since. To me it is like a great, sly, deceitful monster, always sighing and moaning for somebody, or and storming in rage. We came away, mother and me, after the last was drowned; we couldn’t bear it any longer.”
 
“Poor Miss Potts!” said little Priscilla, laying her hand on Miss Potts’s worn ones, moving so restlessly in her lap.
 
Mrs. Carlyon had gone away and left them together, and Miss Potts had dropped into a chair close to Priscilla’s sofa.
 
“You don’t think the sea will roar for Loveday, and swallow her up, do you?” asked Priscilla, in a very anxious voice.
 
“Oh no, my dear; Porthcallis is a very safe place!” said Miss Potts emphatically. “P’r’aps I shouldn’t have told you anything about—about my experience. But where we lived it was very wild and rocky, and my folk were all seafaring; ’twas their work to go to sea. Out of all my family that lies in the burying-ground, only two of them are men; all the rest of our men-folk lies at the bottom of the sea.”
 
“But you had sisters, hadn’t you, Miss Potts?”
 
“Yes, dear, two; but the sea had them as well. One of them, Annie—she was the youngest—was out shrimping by herself one day, when the tide caught her and carried her out. Hettie saw her, and ran into the sea to save her, but——”
 
“Yes?” whispered Priscilla softly, her eyes full of tears. “Couldn’t she reach her?”
 
“Yes, she reached her. Father, coming home that night from the fishing, found them clasped together, and brought them home,” said poor Miss Potts. “I never saw a smile on his face from that day till just a year later, when the sea claimed him too.”
 
“Oh, how dreadful! I shall never like the sea again,” said Priscilla, wiping away her tears. “I don’t wonder you cam............