To-day Guida should hear a message beyond all others in importance.
"Won't you come into the garden ?" he said presently.
"A moment--a moment," she answered him lightly, for the frown had passed from his face, and he was his old buoyant self again.

"I'm to make an end to this bashin of berries first," she added.

So saying, she waved him away with a little air of tyranny; and he perched himself boyishly on the big chair in the corner, and with idle impatience began playing with the flax on the spinning-wheel near by.

Then he took to humming a ditty the Jersey housewife used to sing as she spun, while Guida disposed of the sweet-smelling fruit.

Suddenly she stopped and stamped her foot.
"No, no, that's not right, stupid sailor-man," she said, and she sang a verse at him over the last details of her work: "Spin, spin, belle Mergaton! The moon wheels full, and the tide flows high, And your wedding-gown you must put it on Ere the night hath no moon in the sky-- Gigoton Mergaton, spin!" She paused.