from
the heights to the sea, one vast blaze of flaming gorse--a tumultuous
torrent of solid sunshine stayed suddenly in its course. And, in below
the sunshine of the gorse, where rough Mother Earth should have been,
there lay instead a soft sunset cloud, the tender cream-yellow and
green of myriads of primroses and the just uncurling fronds of the
bracken--primroses in such unbroken sheets and masses as to give a
weird effect of remoteness and impalpability to that which was solid
and close at hand.

"Wonderful!" murmured Margaret.

"Glorious!" murmured Miss Penny. "Is it really old Mother Earth we're
looking at?"

"No, dear! It's a bit of the sky fallen down there and the sun has
rolled over it into the sea. See the bits of him in the wavelets! And
did you ever in your life see a green like that water below the
rocks?"

"Sky and sun above, sun and sky below!--with trimmings of liquid
emerald and sapphire, shot with white and gold. Meg, my child, this is
a long way from No. 1 Melgrave Square."

"A long, long way!" assented Margaret thoughtfully. And then, to take
advantage of her companion's comparative soberness through the
stirring of her feelings,--"Hennie, do you think we ought to stop?"

"Stop?" and Miss Penny fronted her squarely. "Stop? Why, we've only
just come. What's disgruntling you, Chummie?"

"Can't you see how awkward it is?"

"Well,--that depends--"

"No one would believe it was all pure accident."

"Perhaps it isn't," said Miss Penny oracularly.

"Why, what do you mean?" said Margaret, bristling in her turn.

"Oh, I'm imputing no guile, my child. I'm miles away up past that kind
of thing. What I mean is this--perhaps it was meant to be, and you
couldn't help yourselves. Now if that should be the case, it would be
flying in the face of Providence to go and upset it all. What are your
feelings towards him?"

"Feelings? I have no feelings--"

"Oh yes, you have, my child. You're not made of marble, though you can
look it when you try. Why, I have myself. I like him--the little I've
seen of him--and in spite of the fact that he caught me doing my hair,
which is enough to turn anyone against anyone. I shall probably like
him still more the better I get to know him. What have you against
him?"

"I've nothing whatever against him. I--"

"Then, my dear, we'll sit tight. If anyone should go it's he, since
he's been here a month, and we've only been one day. But if he goes it
will only be be