in Portugal, isn't it?"

He nodded. He was gazing at the picturesque little place, the human
nests stuck like white stones in the cleft of the cliffs; and something
more than the beauty of Shorne Mills was stirring, almost oppressing,
his heart. He had stayed at, and departed from, many a place as
beautiful in other ways as this, and had left it with some little
regret, perhaps, but never with the dull, aching feeling such as weighed
upon him this evening.

"And at night it's lovelier still," went on Nell cheerfully, after a
snatch of song, just sung under her breath, to show how happy and free
from care she was at that moment. "To sail in on the tide of an autumn
evening when the lights have been lit, and every cottage looks like a
lantern; and the blue haze hangs over the village, and the children's
voices come floating over the water as if through a mist; then, on
nights like that, the sea is all phosphorescent, and the boat leaves a
line of silvery light in its wake; and one seems to have all the world
to oneself----"

She stopped suddenly and sighed unconsciously. Was she thinking that,
when that autumn night came, and Drake Vernon was not with her, she
would indeed have all the world to herself, and that all the world is
all the nicer when one has a companion? He lowered his eyes to her face.

"That was a pretty picture," he said, in a low voice. "I shall think of
that--wherever I may be in the autumn."

Nell laughed as the boat ran beside the jetty slip, and she rose.

"Do you think you will? Perhaps you will be too much amused, engrossed
with whatever you are doing. I know I should be, if--if I were to leave
Shorne Mills, and go into the big world."

"You do yourself an injustice," he said, rather curtly; and she laughed,
and flushed a little.

"I deserve that," she said. "Of course, I should not forget Shorne
Mills; but you----Ah, it is different!"

She sprang out before he could get on shore and offer his hand.

"I shall want her to-morrow morning at eleven, Brownie," she said to the
old fisherman who was preparing to take the _Annie Laurie_ to her
moorings.

He touched his forehead.

"Aye, aye, Miss Nell! And you'll not be wanting me?" he asked, as a
matter of form, and with a glance at Drake, who stood waiting with his
hands in his pockets.

"Oh, yes, please," she said. "I forgot; Mr. Vernon is going away
to-morrow," she added cheerfully; and she began to sing under her breath
again as they