The more daring of the girls
waded bare-legged in the water, holding pine-torches, spearing
flounders and peering for soft-shell crabs.
Annette had wandered farther in the shallow water than the rest.
Suddenly she stumbled against a stone, the torch dropped and
spluttered at her feet. With a little helpless cry she looked at
the stretch of unfamiliar beach and water to find herself all
alone.
"Pardon me, mademoiselle," said a voice at her elbow; "you are in
distress?"
It was her fisherman, and with a scarce conscious sigh of relief,
Annette put her hand into the outstretched one at her side.
"I was looking for soft shells," she explained, "and lost the
crowd, and now my torch is out."
"Where is the crowd?" There was some amusement in the tone, and
Annette glanced up quickly, prepared to be thoroughly indignant
at this fisherman who dared make fun at her; but there was such a
kindly look about his mouth that she was reassured and said
meekly,--
"At Henderson's Point."
"You have wandered a half-mile away," he mused, "and have nothing
to show for your pains but very wet skirts. If mademoiselle will
permit me, I will take her to her friends, but allow me to
suggest that mademoiselle will leave the water and walk on the
sands."
"But I am barefoot," wailed Annette, "and I am afraid of the
fiddlers."
Fiddler crabs, you know, aren't pleasant things to be dangling
around one's bare feet, and they are more numerous than sand
fleas down at Henderson's Point.
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