CHAPTER III.
"MACK'REL—MACKER-EL—MACK-ER-EL!"
It was a brilliant morning. The sea lay like a glass floor, and the sunshine, like a million fairies, danced on it. The town looked as bright as it was possible for Peel to look. The smoke was only beginning to coil upward from the chimney stacks, and the streets were yet quiet, when the silvery voice of a child was heard to cry—
"Sweet violets and primroses the sweetest."
It was a little auburn-haired lassie of five, with ruddy cheeks, and laughing lips, and sparkling brown eyes. She wore a clean white apron that covered her skirt, which was tucked up and pinned in fish-wife fashion in front. Her head was bare; she carried a basket over one arm, and a straw hat that swung on the other hand.
The basket contained flowers which the child was selling "A ha'penny a bunch, ma'am, only a ha'penny!" The little thing was as bright as the sunlight that glistened over her head. She had made a song of her sweet call, and chanted the simple words with a rhythmic swing—
" Sweet violets and primroses the sweetest."
"Ruby," cried a gentleman at the door of a house facing the sea. "Here, little one, give me a bunch of
