Page:Cornelia Meigs--The island of Appledore.djvu/198

178, but Billy was still sitting before Captain Saulsby’s door. Quick steps—they could be no other than Sally Shute’s—came across the  garden, and the little girl stepped out of the  dark and sat down beside him.

“Mother and Jacky have gone to church,” she said, “but I came over here to see the Captain. Is he sick again, or anything? Is something wrong?”

“No,” returned Billy with an effort, “No, nothing’s wrong.”

Even if he had felt free to tell her, he could hardly have explained what was amiss. A heavy feeling in the air, a queer thrill inside  him, a vague sensation that something big, too  big to understand, was about to happen: could  one call that “something wrong”? Billy hardly thought so and therefore kept silent.

Sally moved about uneasily for a little while, got up, seated herself again, then finally  jumped up once more.

“I can’t keep still, Billy Wentworth, and no more can you,” she announced. “Let’s go down on the beach.”

They went down over the sparse sea-grass, across the smooth water-worn rocks to the  beach, left hard and wet by the receding tide.