Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free.This is an OCR edition with typos.Excerpt from book:CHAPTER V. AT THE COASTGUARD STATION. Miss Appleton, a young person whose chignon and crinoline were much larger than Lady Susan considered suitable to a coastguardsman's daughter, opened the door with an airy flourish, revealing behind her an exquisitely neat apartment, brilliant with polished surfaces, its only litter the materials of an unmade dress, upon which she had evidently been at work. On recognizing her visitors and their dilapidated condition, her careless face and manner underwent a change. "Annie!" she cried, with a long emphasis on the first syllable of the name, and an accent of mingled dismay and amusement—the amusement predominating—that set Dicky's teeth on edge. '' Whatever have you been doi ng ?" Then, turning to the young man with an effort to be respectfully serious, but still giggling under her breath, "Oh, Mr. Richard, sir!—goodness gracious, what a mess you are in to be sure ! " "So would you be in a mess, Miss Appleton, if you had gone through what we have," said Dicky brusquely. ' 'Miss Morrison was caught by the tide at the mussel beds, and I happened to be walking on the beach, fortunately, and saw her, and fished her out. Do take her in, please, and make her dry, and get her something hot; she is chilled through and through, and will be laid up with a fever if we don't mind. I think she had better go to bed, with a lot of blankets over her." The young lady looked with some alarm at Annie's boots and petticoats, and the spotless floor and furniture; then thriftily pinned her own dress skirt round her waist and turned up her neat cuffs. "And you too, Mr. Richard," she said sweetly ; "you must be attended to. I don't know what Mr. Delavel and my lady would say if you went home like that—-and such a long way, too, and your