remain here. Imagine
that fate--living a long life and dying at the Elms!"

"It is all conjecture," said her sister. "Try to be more contented,
Beatrice. We do not make our own lives, we have not the control of our
own destiny."

"I should like to control mine," sighed Beatrice.

"Try to be contented, darling," continued the sweet, pleading voice.
"We all love and admire you. No one was ever loved more dearly or
better than you are. The days are rather long at times, but there are
all the wonders and beauties of Nature and art."

"Nature and Art are all very well," cried Beatrice; "but give me life."

She turned her beautiful, restless face from the smiling sea; the south
wind dancing over the yellow gorse caught up the words uttered in that
clear, musical voice and carried them over the cliff to one who was
lying with half-closed eyes under the shade of a large tree--a young
man with a dark, half-Spanish face handsome with a coarse kind of
beauty. He was lying there, resting upon the turf, enjoying the beauty
of the morning. As the musical voice reached him, and the strange
words fell upon his ear, he smiled and raised his head to see who
uttered them. He saw the young girls, but their faces were turned from
him; those words range in his ears--"Nature and Art are all very well,
but give me life."

Who was it longed for life? He understood the longing; he resolved to
wait there until the girls went away. Again he heard the same voice.

"I shall leave you to your sails, Lillian. I wish those same boats
would come to carry us away--I wish I had wings and could fly over the
sea and see the bright, grand world that lies beyond it. Goodbye; I am
tired of the never-ending wash of those long, low waves."

He saw a young girl rise from the fragrant heather and turn to descend
the cliff. Quick as thought he rushed down by another path, and,
turning back, contrived to meet her half-way. Beatrice came singing
down the cliff. Her humor, never the same ten minutes together, had
suddenly changed. She remembered a new and beautiful song that Lady
Earle had sent, and determined to go home and try it. There came no
warning to her that bright summer morning. The south wind lifted the
hair from her brow and wafted the fragrance of hawthorn buds and spring
flowers to greet her, but it brought no warning message; the birds
singing gayly, the sun shining so brightly could not tell her that the
first link in a terribl