MARGARET AND ELIZABETH.

CHAPTER I.

A BURIAL ON THE SANDS.

THREE or four miles along the coast to the left of Wrexham harbour is the little fishing village of Eastweir.

There are nets on the chimneys of the houses, and nets on the doors and windows; there are nets on the little arbours in the wild, sandy little gardens; there are nets over the sandy cabbages, and nets on the walls;-not a single yard of fence is there in Eastweir uncovered by this sign of its trade. Approaching it from inland, it looks at a little distance as if it were enveloped in one

A

huge net in which the whole village, just as it is, had been caught and hauled in one fine morning; and indeed the inhabitants, on first catching sight of a stranger, have very much the air of fish out of water.

The weir from which it derives its name is some little distance farther along the coast; and between it and the sea lies only a strip of grey shingle, and at low tide the most beautiful stretch of fair sand that the English coast can show.

On that morning the earliest riser in the village chanced to be a fair-haired and ruddy young woman, named Elizabeth Vandereck.

Her rest had been disturbed by two little cherubs, as fair-haired and ruddy as herself, and exactly like each other, playing at "bopeep" with her blue patched counterpane.

For some moments she lay still, watching them with half-closed eyes and repressed smile, waiting her opportunity to spring up and startle them, which she presently did; and the little ones were

seized by a paroxysm of laughter, which lasted all the time she was dressing them.

Theirs were not elaborate toilets; they consisted of little else than a blue flannel frock apiece, made out of an old shirt of stout Josh Vandereck's.

The dressing finished, the mother carried them, one on each arm, across the bit of rough shingle, set them down, joined their hands (the little ones scarcely could stand firmly alone), and started them on their run across the sands, which at every low tide they imprinted with their tiny dimpled feet.

It was a lovely morning. Across the blue sky, dim with heat, swam a half wreath of light clouds, pale and luminous as pearls; the sands were rosy in the sunshine, and a fair olive-brown in the shade; a breeze full of fresh sea-dew was blowing.

"Off!" cried the mother, clapping her hands; and bounded the little creatures, their rosy away

limbs looking lovely against the sands, and their

fair hair blowing out widely, making them appear not unlike two rare specimens of the sea

anemone.

Elizabeth Vandereck watched them fondly, and turned back with unwilling steps to prepare her darlings' breakfast.

She stood before the little square looking-glass that hung beside the window, and made her thick fair hair into two great shining plaits, that she fastened close to her head with a matronly neatness and scorn of display. She was a sweet simple-minded woman, with large eyes and large calm lips, and a low but noble brow. Her eyes were very bright that morning-so bright that a sudden mist, the forerunner of tears, came over them as she remembered there was no one to think so but herself.

"My children would love me as much if I were plain," she thought, and smiled and sighed at the same time.

She went and stood before a little table, on