o do was to follow the veins and win the ore in paying quantities, and
he found himself handicapped on every hand by the obstinacy of his men.

Outside business matters he was very well satisfied with his
surroundings.

In such spare time as he had, he wandered over the Island with eager,
open eyes, marvelling at its wonders and enjoying its natural beauties
with rare delight.

The great granite cliffs, with their deep indentations and stimulating
caves and crannies; the shimmering blue and green sea, with its long
slow heave which rushed in foam and tumult up the rock-pools and
gullies; the softer beauties of rounded down and flower-and fern-clad
slopes honeycombed with rabbit holes; the little sea-gardens teeming
with novel life; in all these he found his resource and a certain
consolation for his loneliness.

And in the Hamon household he found much to interest him and not a
little ground for speculation.

Old Mrs. Hamon--Grannie--had promptly ordered him in for inspection,
and, after prolonged and careful observation from the interior of the
black sun-bonnet, had been understood to approve him, since she said
nothing to the contrary.

It took him some time to arrive at the correct relationship between
young Tom and Nance and Bernel, for it seemed quite incredible that
fruit so diverse should spring from one parent stem.

For Tom was all that was rough and boorish--rude to Mrs. Hamon, coarse,
and at times overbearing to Nance and Bernel, to such an extent, indeed,
that more than once Gard had difficulty in remembering that he himself
was only a visitor on sufferance and not entitled to interfere in such
intimate family matters.

Tom was not slow to perceive this, and in consequence set himself
deliberately to provoke it by behaviour even more outrageous than usual.
Time and again Gard would have rejoiced to take him outside and express
his feelings to their fullest satisfaction.

With Mrs. Hamon and Bernel he was on the most friendly footing, his
undisguised sentiments in the matter of Tom commending him to them
decisively.

But with Nance he made no headway whatever.

It was an absolutely new sensation to him, and a satisfaction the
meaning of which he had not yet fully gauged, to be living under the
same roof with a girl such as this. He found himself listening for her
voice outside and the sound of her feet, and learned almost at once to
distinguish between the clatter of her wooden pattens and any o