came here because my sisters did not care to leave London till
the end of the season," replied the clear contralto. "It has been a
perfect cruise. I shall remember it all my life."

After that, nothing more was audible; but I imagine Derrick must have
hazarded a more personal question, and that Freda had admitted that it
was not only the actual sailing she should remember. At any rate her
face when I caught sight of it again made me think of the girl described
in the 'Biglow Papers':

"''Twas kin' o' kingdom come to look
On sech a blessed creatur.
A dogrose blushin' to a brook
Ain't modester nor sweeter.'"

So the train went off, and Derrick and I were left to idle about
Southampton and kill time as best we might. Derrick seemed to walk the
streets in a sort of dream--he was perfectly well aware that he had met
his fate, and at that time no thought of difficulties in the way had
arisen either in his mind or in my own. We were both of us young and
inexperienced; we were both of us in love, and we had the usual lover's
notion that everything in heaven and earth is prepared to favour the
course of his particular passion.

I remember that we soon found the town intolerable, and, crossing by the
ferry, walked over to Netley Abbey, and lay down idly in the shade of
the old grey walls. Not a breath of wind stirred the great masses of
ivy which were wreathed about the ruined church, and the place looked so
lovely in its decay, that we felt disposed to judge the dissolute
monks very leniently for having behaved so badly that their church and
monastery had to be opened to the four winds of heaven. After all, when
is a church so beautiful as when it has the green grass for its floor
and the sky for its roof?

I could show you the very spot near the East window where Derrick told
me the whole truth, and where we talked over Freda's perfections and the
probability of frequent meetings in London. He had listened so often and
so patiently to my affairs, that it seemed an odd reversal to have to
play the confidant; and if now and then my thoughts wandered off to the
coming month at Mondisfield, and pictured violet eyes while he talked of
grey, it was not from any lack of sympathy with my friend.

Derrick was not of a self-tormenting nature, and though I knew he was
amazed at the thought that such a girl as Freda could possibly care for
him, yet he believed most implicitly that this wonderful thing ha