re the world for me, Kiddo!"

She waked at dawn, with a queer feeling of awe at the weird, gray light
which filtered through the cotton walls. A sense of oneness with Nature
and the beat of Her eternal heart filled her soul. The soft wash of the
water on the sands seemed to be keeping time to the throb of her own
pulse.

She peered curiously into the face of her sleeping lover. She had never
seen him asleep before. She started at the transformation wrought by
the closing of his heavy eyelids and the complete relaxation of his
features. The strange, steel-blue coloring of his eyes had always given
his face an air of mystery and charm. The complete closing of the
heavy lids and the slight droop of the lower jaw had worked a frightful
change. The romance and charm had gone, and instead she saw only the
coarse, brutal strength.

She frowned like a spoiled child, put her dainty hand under his chin and
pressed his mouth together.

"Wake up, sir!" she whispered. "I don't like your expression!"

He refused to stir, and she drew the tips of her fingers across his ears
and eyelids.

He rubbed his eyes and muttered:

"What t'ell?"

"Let's take a bath in the sea before sunrise--come on!"

The sleeper groaned heavily, turned over, and in a moment was again dead
to the world.

Mary's eyes were wide now with excitement. The hours were too marvelous
to be lost in sleep. She could sleep when they must return to the
tiresome world with its endless crowds of people.

She rose softly, ran barefoot to the beach, threw her night-dress on
the sand and plunged, her white, young body trembling with joy, into the
water.

It was marvelous--this wonderful hush of the dawn over the infinite sea.
The air and water melted into a pearl gray. Far out toward the east,
the waters began to blush at the kiss of the coming sun. The pearl
gray slowly turned into purple. So startling was the vision, she swam
in-shore and stood knee-deep in the shallows to watch the magic changes.
In breathless wonder she saw the sea and sky and shore turn into a
trembling cloud of dazzling purple. A moment before, she had caught the
water up in her hand and poured it out in a stream of pearls. She lifted
a handful and poured it out now, each drop a dazzling amethyst. And even
while she looked, the purple was changing to scarlet--the amethyst into
rubies!

A great awe filled her in the solemn hush. She stood in Nature's vast
cathedral, close to God's heart--h