prise the family?"

Her lips parted to say: "Let us go on together," but she remembered
Father Burke and his warning. So she answered, with a glance at the
trunks, "Perhaps you should go first. The sooner the baggage is removed
the better."

With a little bow of acquiescence Pats turned and climbed the rocky
path. She followed, but at a distance, and slowly, that there might be
no confusion in his mind as to her desire to walk alone. To make doubly
sure she paused about half-way up and listened for a moment to the
tumbling of the waves upon the little beach below.

Reaching the top of this path she found herself at the edge of a forest.
It was more like a grove,--a vast grove of primeval pines. Into the
shadow of this wood she entered, then stopped, and gazed about. Such
trees she had never seen,--an endless vista of gigantic trunks, like the
columns of a mighty cathedral, all towering to a vault of green, far
above her head. And this effect of an interior--of some boundless
temple--was augmented by the smooth, brown floor,--a carpet of
pine-needles. With upturned face and half-closed eyes the girl drew a
long deep breath. The fragrance of the pines, the sighing of the wind
through the canopy above, all were soothing to the senses; and yet, in a
dreamy way, they stirred the imagination. This was fairy land--the
enchanted forest--the land of poetry and peace--of calm content, far
away from common things. And that unending lullaby from above! What
music could be sweeter?

From this revery--of longer duration than she realized--she was awakened
by a distant voice of a person shouting. She could see Pats off at the
end of the point waving his handkerchief and trying to attract the
attention of somebody on the water. Perhaps the gardener, or some
fisherman.

Walking farther on, into the wood, she became more and more impressed by
the solemn beauty of this paradise. And the carpet of pine-needles
seemed placed there with kind intent as if to insure a deeper silence.
She resolved to spend much of her time in these woods, and, even now,
she found herself almost regretting the proximity of her friends.

In the distance, between the trunks of the trees, came glimpses, first
of Solomon, then of his master, moving hastily about as if on urgent
business. She smiled, a superior, tolerant smile at the
inconsistency--and the sacrilege--of haste or of any kind of business in
the sacred twilight of this grove, this realm of peace.