nd if I told you whom he looks like to
me?"

"No, my dear," I answered easily, and like an echo to my thought her
words came.

"It is your sailor. Do you see it? He is only a common seaman, of
course, but I think he must have a wonderful face, for with all his
dare-devil ways I always think of 'Blessed are the pure in spirit' when
I see him. And the eyes in the picture have the same expression--do you
mind my saying it, Cousin Mary?"

"I saw it myself the first time I looked at him," I said. And then, as
people do when they are on the verge of crying, I laughed. "Anne Ford
would think me ridiculous, wouldn't she?" and I held Geoff's picture in
both my hands. "He is much better suited to her or to you. A splendid
young fellow of twenty-four to belong to an old woman like me--it is
absurd, isn't it?"

"He is suited to no one but you, dear, and you are just his age and
always will be," and as Sally's arms caught me tight I felt tears that
were not my own on my cheek.

It was ten days yet before Anne was due to arrive, and almost every day
of the ten we sailed. The picturesque coast of North Devon, its deep
bays, its stretches of high, tree-topped cliffs, grew to be home-like to
us. We said nothing of Cary and his boat at the Inn, for we soon saw
that both were far-and-away better than common, and we were selfish.
Nor did the man himself seem to care for more patronage. He was always
ready when we wished to go, and jumped from his spick-and-span deck to
meet us with a smile that started us off in sunshine, no matter what the
weather. And with my affection for the lovely, uneven coast and the seas
that held it in their flashing fingers, grew my interest in the winning
personality that seemed to combine something of the strength of the
hills and the charm of the seas of Devonshire.

One day after another he loosed the ropes with practised touch, and the
wind taught the sail with a gay rattle and the little Revenge flung off
the steep street and the old sea-wall and the green cliffs of Clovelly,
and first yards and then miles of rippling ocean lay between us and
land, and we sailed away, we did not need to know or care where, with
our fate for the afternoon in his reliable hands. Little by little we
forgot artificial distinctions in the out-of-doors, natural atmosphere,
or that the man was anything but himself--a self always simple, always
right. Looking back, I see how deeply I was to blame, to have been so
blind, at