d now wear her, like a pearl beyond all price. I think that
she is worthy of you: more than that she could not be."

They shook hands, and soon Sam was at her side again, toiling up the
steep ascent. They soon distanced the others, and went forwards by
themselves.

There was such a rise in the ground seawards, that the broad ocean was
invisible till they were half way up the grassy down. Then right and
left they began to see the nether firmament, stretching away
infinitely. But the happy lovers paused not till they stood upon the
loftiest breezy knoll, and seemed alone together between the blue
cloudless heaven and another azure-sphere which lay beneath their feet.

A cloudless sky and a sailless sea. Far beneath them they heard but saw
not the eternal surges gnawing at the mountain. A few white albatrosses
skimmed and sailed below, and before, seaward, the sheets of turf,
falling away, stretched into a shoreless headland, fringed with black
rock and snow-white surf.

She stood there, flushed and excited with the exercise, her bright hair
dishevelled, waving in the free sea-breeze, the most beautiful object
in that glorious landscape, her noble mate beside her. Awe, wonder, and
admiration kept both of them silent for a few moments, and then she
spoke.

"Do you know any of the choruses in the 'Messiah'?" asked she.

"No, I do not," said Sam.

"I am rather sorry for it," she said, "because this is so very like
some of them."

"I can quite imagine that," said Sam. "I can quite imagine music which
expresses what we see now. Something infinitely BROAD I should say. Is
that nonsense now?"

"Not to me," said Alice.

"I imagined," said Sam, "that the sea would be much rougher than this.
In spite of the ceaseless thunder below there, it is very calm."

"Calm, eh?" said the Doctor's voice behind them. "God help the ship
that should touch that reef this day, though a nautilus might float in
safety! See, how the groundswell is tearing away at those rocks; you
can just distinguish the long heave of the water, before it breaks.
There is the most dangerous groundswell in the world off this coast.
Should this country ever have a large coast-trade, they will find it
out, in calm weather with no anchorage."

A great coasting trade has arisen; and the Doctor's remark has proved
terribly true. Let the Monumental City and the Schomberg, the Duncan
Dunbar and the Catherine Adamson bear witness to it. Let the drowning
cries of