"It looks as if it had hundreds of suffocating people under it--all struggling to get to the surface, and all sinking lower and lower in the dreadful deeps! Throw a stone in, Mr.Betteredge! Throw a stone in, and let's see the sand suck it down!" Here was unwholesome talk! Here was an empty stomach feeding on an unquiet mind! My answer--a pretty sharp one, in the poor girl's own interests, I promise you!--was at my tongue's end, when it was snapped short off on a sudden by a voice among the sand-hills shouting for me by my name.

"Betteredge!" cries the voice, "where are you ?" "Here!" I shouted out in return, without a notion in my mind of who it was.
Rosanna started to her feet, and stood looking towards the voice.

I was just thinking of getting on my own legs next, when I was staggered by a sudden change in the girl's face.
Her complexion turned of a beautiful red, which I had never seen in it before; she brightened all over with a kind of speechless and breathless surprise.

"Who is it ?" I asked.

Rosanna gave me back my own question.
"Oh! who is it ?" she said softly, more to herself than to me.