ified to find that her heart was beating
fast.

She made some excuse or other after breakfast, and departed. It was a
clear, beautiful December morning, the sun shining brilliantly on the
evergreens and on the red houses of the bright, clean, picturesque,
English-looking old town. She went down to the station, and waited for
the first train going to Newhaven. When it came in, she took her
place, and away the train went, at no breakneck speed, down the wide
valley of the Ouse, which, even on this cold December morning, looked
pleasant and cheerful enough. For here and there the river caught a
steely-blue light from the sky overhead; and the sunshine shone along
the round chalk hills; and there were little patches of villages far
away among the dusk of the leafless trees, where the church spire
rising into the blue seemed to attract the wheeling of pigeons. To Nan
it was all a familiar scene; she frequently spent the day in this
fashion.

Nan was now three years older than when we last saw her at Bellagio.
Perhaps she had not grown much prettier--and she never had great
pretensions that way; but along with the angularity, so to speak, of
her ways of thinking, she had also lost the boniness of her figure.
She was now more fully formed, though her figure was still slender and
graceful; and she had acquired a grave and sweet expression, that spoke
of a very kindly, humorous, tolerant nature within. Children came to
her readily; and she let them pull her hair. She was incapable of a
harsh judgment. The world seemed beautiful to her; and she enjoyed
living--especially when she was on the high downs overlooking the sea.

This getting out into the open was on this occasion a great relief to
her. She argued with herself. What did it matter to her whether Frank
King were in Brighton, or even that he had been at the house in
Brunswick Terrace, dining, and playing billiards? He had probably
forgotten that ever he had been at Bellagio. She was glad the weather
was fine. No doubt her sisters would soon be setting out for their
morning stroll down the pier.

Nan had taken her ticket for Newhaven Wharf, with a vague intention of
walking from thence by the short cut to Seaford, and from Seaford to
Alfriston, and so back to Lewes. However, when the train stopped she
thought she would have a look at the harbour, and very pretty and
bright and busy it appeared on this clear morning; the brass and copper
of the steamers al