e chain was to be forged that morning.

Half-way down the cliff, where the path was steep and narrow, Beatrice
suddenly met the stranger. A stranger was a rarity at the Elms. Only
at rare intervals did an artist or a tourist seek shelter and
hospitality at the old farm house. The stranger seemed to be a
gentleman. For one moment both stood still; then, with a low bow, the
gentleman stepped aside to let the young girl pass. As he did so, he
noted the rare beauty of that brilliant face--he remembered the longing
words.

"No wonder," he thought; "it is a sin for such a face as that to be
hidden here."

The beauty of those magnificent eyes startled him. Who was she? What
could she be doing here? Beatrice turning again, saw the stranger
looking eagerly after her, with profound admiration expressed in every
feature of his face; and that admiring gaze, the first she had ever
received in her life, sank deep into the vain, girlish heart.

He watched the graceful, slender figure until the turn of the road hid
Beatrice from his view. He followed her at a safe distance, and saw
her cross the long meadows that led to the Elms. Then Hugh Fernely
waited with patience until one of the farm laborers came by. By
judicious questioning he discovered much of the history of the
beautiful young girl who longed for life. Her face haunted him--its
brilliant, queenly beauty, the dark, radiant eyes. Come what might,
Hugh Fernely said to himself, he must see her again.

On the following morning he saw the girls return to the cliff. Lillian
finished her picture. Ever and anon he heard Beatrice singing, in a
low, rich voice, a song that had charmed her with its weird beauty:

"For men must work, and women must weep; And the sooner it's over, the
sooner to sleep And goodbye to the bar and its moaning."

"I like those words, Lillian," he heard her say. "I wonder how soon it
will be 'over' for me. Shall I ever weep, as the song says? I have
never wept yet."

This morning the golden-haired sister left the cliff first, and
Beatrice sat reading until the noonday sun shone upon the sea. Her book
charmed her; it was a story telling of the life she loved and longed
for--of the gay, glad world. Unfortunately all the people in the book
were noble, heroic, and ideal. The young girl, in her simplicity,
believed that they who lived in the world she longed for were all like
the people in her book.

When she left the path that led to th