Little Em’ly had stopped and looked up at the sky in her enumeration of these articles, as if they were a glorious vision. We went on again, picking up shells and pebbles.

“You would like to be a lady?” I said.

Emily looked at me, and laughed and nodded “yes.”

“I should like it very much. We would all be gentlefolks together, then. Me, and uncle, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge. We wouldn’t mind then, when there comes stormy weather.⁠—Not for our own sakes, I mean. We would for the poor fishermen’s, to be sure, and we’d help ’em with money when they come to any hurt.” This seemed to me to be a very satisfactory and therefore not at all improbable picture. I expressed my pleasure in the contemplation of it, and little Em’ly was emboldened to say, shyly,

“Don’t you think you are afraid of the sea, now?”