The cottage door stood open, and the afternoon sunlight fell across the old red tiles of the kitchen floor.  The tiles were a little broken, and here and there they were sunk and worn; but they were as clean as hands could make them, as Mrs. Kane would have said.  A little window at one side looked down the garden, and across it was a frilled curtain, and on the sill a geranium in full flower.  On the other side was the fire-place, with chintz frill and curtains, and the grate filled with a great bush of green beech-leaves.  A table set on the red tiles was spread for tea, and by it sat Mrs. Kane and her friend Mrs. Ford enjoying a friendly cup together.

“She is late this evening,” Mrs. Kane was saying; “but she’ll turn up all right by and by.  If she’s wild she’s sharp, which is still something.  She never gets under horses’ feet, nor drops into the pond, or anything of that sort.  If she did those sort of things, being such a rover, Mrs. Ford, you see I never should have an easy moment in my life.”

“I must say it’s very good of you to take to do with her,” said Mrs. Ford, “and she nobody belonging to you.  If she was your own child—­”

“Well, you see, my own two dears went to heaven with the measles,” said Mrs. Kane, “and I felt so lonesome without them, that when John walked in with the little bundle in his arms that night, I thought he was just an angel of light.”

“It was on the Long Sands he found her, wasn’t it?” asked Mrs. Ford, balancing her spoon on the edge of her cup.

“On the Long Sands after the great storm,” said Mrs. Kane; “and that’s just four years ago in May gone by.  How a baby ever lived through the storm to be washed in by the sea alive always beats me when I think of it, it seems so downright unnatural; and yet that’s the way that Providence ordered it, Mrs. Ford.”

“I suppose all her folks were drowned?” said Mrs. Ford.

“Most like they were, for it was a bad wreck, as I’ve heard,” said Mrs. Kane.  “Leastways, nobody has ever come to claim her, and no questions have been asked.  Unless it was much for her good I would fain hope that nobody ever will claim her now.  Wild as she is, I’ve grown to love that little Hetty, so I have.  Ah, here she is coming along, as hungry as a little pussy for her milk, I’ll be bound!”

Hetty came trudging along the garden path, her curls standing up in a bush on her head, her little fat fingers stained green with grass, and her pinafore, no longer green, filled with moon-daisies.  She was singing with her baby voice lifted bravely: 

“Dust as I am I come to zee—­”

“Dust indeed!” cried Mrs. Kane, “I never saw such dust.  Only look at her shoes that I blacked this morning!”

“Poor dear, practising her singing,” said Mrs. Ford.  “Well, little lass, and what have you been seeing and doing all day long?”