sea eagle hovered over the fishy morass, the
only creature that gathered any other harvest
there, than that of disease and death.

But I have got on a long way from the
morning after the invasion, as the people
used to call that panic.

How we who were burnt out were to be
housed, was the first question. On a hint
from the doctor, I was kindly received in the
nearest Preventive Stationhouse. My mother
and her other children found corners in the
neighbours' houses for a time. In a week's
time, I was quite able to take care of myself;
and in another week, I was at play on the
sands again, and even earning money, in a
curious sort of way, on the sea wall. The
station-house was as clean as a quaker's
meeting; and in a fine air, of course. By
day, I lay on the dry grass in the sun; and
by night, I slept—and oh! so soundly—on a
little mattress, in the corner of a white-
washed room, where the floor was cleaner
than our plates at home ever were, and where
the window was open all day, and left a little
open at the top, all night. The first time I
walked down to the beach, I met the doctor
and another of the officers; and I heard him
say that he could never have brought me
round entirely, if I had staid among fish
garbage, and under rotten thatch; and that
it was a good thing for me that we had been
burnt out.

"This is the child that has such a sharp
sight, you may remember," he said to the
other officer.

"What! this little wretch?" asked the
lieutenant. "I should not have believed that
she was the same child."

"And yet she is plump, compared with
what she was ten days since. And I dare
say her eyes are as good as ever, by this
time."

The gentlemen tried me, and found that at
any rate my sea-sight was better than theirs,
and that I could see more without the glass,
than they could with it. After a few words
of consultation, they bade me follow them to
the sea-wall; and then the lieutenant
promised me a farthing for every sail I could
make the sentinel see; and a halfpenny for
every sail that he could not see, but that I
could bring two witnesses to avouch. This
seemed to me strange at the time; a waste of
money, though I was to get it; and to some
it might seem strange now, after the many
years of peace, during which we have been
released from looking out for an enemy from
the sea. But in those times a strange sail
was the daily and nightly thought of all
people on the coast, and especially of those
who were charged with the defence of our
beloved native shores. A good sea-sight was
a qualification worth paying for in those
times.

The soldiers had managed to make gardens
of the bog that surrounded the barracks, and
I longed that my mother would do as the
soldiers and the other fishwives did, that we
might now and then taste fresh vegetables
with our dry bread and salt fish. But she
did not like the trouble. She sat down
anywhere on the sands to clean her fish, and left
the stuff all strewed about where she had
sat.

We did not see why we should not have a
garden of our own, where our sea-weed,
ashes, and garbage might grow vegetables for
us, without being carried so far as the
barracks. I told Jos that if he could get
anybody to go into partnership with him about
a garden, I would try and get a place in
Dunridge, where I might learn to make good
soup, and to cook and manage so that we
might have something better to eat than dry
bread and salt fish.

Perhaps few children of our age would
have thought of this, in other circumstances;
but, to speak the truth, we were growing
very unhappy about my mother's bottle; and
we had lately been gathering up notions of
comfort which were all the more striking,
because they were new.

The notion was so cheering, that I ran
over to Dunridge as fast as my feet would
carry me; and at the same moment Jos was
running as fast in the contrary direction, in
an equal hurry about the other half of our
scheme. He soon found a man in the
Preventive Service who offered to go into
partnership with him in his scheme of a
garden.

The dell was the proper place; and there
Jos and his friend soon fixed on a promising
bit of ground, with a south-east aspect; and
Butter, his partner, desired Jos to be collecting
materials for a fence which would keep
out the rabbits, while he obtained the owner's
consent to begin to dig. He knew the gentleman
well, from having had many a conversation
with him about the smugglers and the
defence of the coast; and he was sure there
would be no difficulty. There was no difficulty.
It was a new idea to the proprietor
that any thing could be done with that
corner of his land; and he was pleased that
the experiment should be tried. The rent of
the first quarter acre was the merest trifle;
but not so since the neighbours have asked
for gardens there too. From end to end of
that well-tilled dell, now covered with heavy
crops of garden produce, and smelling sweet
with the beanflower and fragrant pot-herbs in
their season, every yard of ground pays rent
to the owner, whose father was wont, to the
day of his death, to point out Jos to his
visitors, when they came down to the coast,
as the lad who made the first move towards
turning a sink of corruption into a wholesome
and fruitful garden.

I have said how eagerly I ran towards the
town, with my head full of my new plan.
My only idea was to apply to the baker. I
had no success the first day; for, besides that
the baker's wife did not want a little maid