_Tuesday, January_ 21.--It is Lizzie Rogers' sixth birthday. She was very anxious to bring a present, and went round to try to get half-a-dozen eggs. Not being able to procure these, she brought us some cooked meat for supper. After having a game I sent her home, but she appeared again when her mother brought the milk. I did not know till afterwards that she wanted to stay the night and that her mother had literally to drag her away, poor little thing. She has long black eyelashes, from under which she looks out at one with a shy trusting look which is quite charming.
[Illustration: OUR BATHING PLACE (LITTLE BEACH)]
We had Betty Cotton and three of her contemporaries in to tea to-day and had quite a _recherché_ meal for them, chocolate mould and some dainty little scones. Most of the people are out of tea, so a cup of it is a treat to them. They stayed three hours, talking chiefly of old times and shipwrecks. One of their favourite stories is of a captain who lashed his wife and child to the rigging and then swam ashore through the breakers. But instead of remaining on the beach near the foundering ship so as to be at hand to help and rescue them he went off to the settlement five miles away and comfortably slept through the night, leaving the islanders to do the watching and rescuing. Our visitors always come in their best attire, and they like being invited into the inner parlour. Mrs. Martha Green went home and returned with a dozen and a half eggs.
_Thursday, January_ 23.--The poor penguins that land on this shore to moult have but a short life, for the dogs hunt them out at once. The other day we rescued one from Rob, who was dragging it from a small cave. It ran back and Graham piled up large stones at the mouth so that no dog could get at it. Each morning on our way to bathe we had a look at it and could see its white breast close to the aperture. But alas! one morning we found the bird gone. A boy had broken down the wall and his dog had killed the penguin. While penguins are moulting they require no other food than that with which Nature has provided them in a store of oil from which they can draw.
_Sunday, January_ 26.--The Repettos have been here this evening. They had some difficulty in getting in, for Rob saw them and took his stand on the doorstep, his hair bristling; they went round to the front and he ran round the other way to meet them. They are so kind to him he ought to have behaved better, but he does not approve of any one coming in the evening. We read aloud Mr. Peck's Diary, _Two Years in Baffin Land_ in the _Intelligencer_, and they were much interested. They like coming and we are only too pleased to see them.