Angela Brazil

Monitress Merle Angela Brazil

The warm, mellow September sunshine was streaming over the irregular roofs and twisted chimneysof the little town of Chagmouth, and was glinting on the water in the harbour, and sendinggleaming, straggling, silver lines over the deep reflections of the shipping moored by the side of thejetty. The rising tide, lapping slowly and gently in from the ocean, was floating the boats beached onthe shingle, and was gradually driving back the crowd of barefooted children who had ventured outin search of mussels, and was sending them, shrieking with mirth, scampering up the seaweedcovered steps that led to the fish market. On the crag-top above the town the corn had been cut, and harvesters were busy laying the sheaves together in stooks. The yellow fields shone in theafternoon light as if the hill were crowned with gold. Walking along the narrow cobbled path that led past the harbour and up on to the cliff, Mavis andMerle looked at the scene around with that sense of rejoicing proprietorship with which we are wontto revisit the pet place of our adoption. It was two whole months since they had been inChagmouth, and as they both considered the little town to be the absolute hub of the universe it wasreally a great event to find themselves once more in its familiar streets. They had spent the summerholidays with their father and mother in the north, and had come back to Durracombe just in timefor the reopening of school. On this first Saturday after their return to Devonshire they hadmotored with Uncle David to his branch surgery at Chagmouth, and were looking forward to severalhours of amusement while he visited his patients at the sanatorium. Readers who have followed the adventures of Mavis and Merle Ramsay in A Fortunate Term willremember that the sisters, on account of Mavis's health, had come to live with their great-uncle Dr. Tremayne at Durracombe, where they attended school daily at 'The Moorings.' Dr. Ramsay, theirfather, had decided shortly to leave his practice at Whinburn and go into partnership with Dr. Tremayne, but the removal to Devonshire could not take place till nearly Christmas, so the girlswere to spend another term in sole charge of Uncle David, Aunt Nellie, and Jessop the elderlyhousekeeper, an arrangement which, though they were sorry to be parted from their parents, pleasedthem uncommonly well. It was a favourite excursion of theirs to accompany their uncle onSaturdays when he motored to visit patients at Chagmouth. On these occasions they would havelunch and tea with him at Grimbal's Farm, where he had his surgery, and would spend theintervening time on the seashore or wandering along the cliffs. To-day, tempted by the brilliantsunshine, they had brought their bathing costumes, towels, and tea-basket, and meant to secure thelast dip of the holidays in case the weather should change and further mermaiding should proveimpossible. They chatted briskly as they climbed the path up the cliff