it reminds me?"

"What?"

"Of neither death nor immortality, but of the full, happy, pulsing
existence of the hour, and of the beautiful world that pessimists like
yourself and mystics like your Angela think so poorly of, but which is
really so glorious and so rich in joy. Why, this sunlight and those
flowers, and the wide sparkle of that sea, are each and all a
happiness, and the health in our veins and the beauty in our eyes,
deep pleasures that we never realize till we lose them. Death, indeed,
comes to us all, but why add to its terrors by thinking of them whilst
it is far off? And, as for life after death, it is a faint, vague
thing, more likely to be horrible than happy. This world is our only
reality, the only thing that we can grasp; here alone we _know_ that
we can enjoy, and yet how we waste our short opportunities for
enjoyment! Soon youth will have slipped away, and we shall be too old
for love. Roses fade fastest, Arthur, when the sun is bright; in the
evening when they have fallen, and the ground is red with withering
petals, do you not think we shall wish that we had gathered more?"

"Yours is a pleasant philosophy, Mildred," he said, struggling faintly
in his own mind against her conclusions.

But at this moment, somehow, his fingers touched her own and were
presently locked fast within her little palm, and for the first time
in his life they sat hand in hand. But, happily for him, he did not
venture to look into her eyes, and, before many minutes had passed,
Miss Terry's voice was heard calling him loudly.

"I suppose that you must go," said Mildred, with a shade of vexation
in her voice and a good many shades upon her face, "or she will be
blundering down here. I will come, too; it is time for tea."

On arriving at the spot whence the sounds proceeded, they found Miss
Terry surrounded by a crowd of laughing and excited bearers, and
pouring out a flood of the most vigorous English upon an unfortunate
islander, who stood, a silver mug in each hand, bowing and shrugging
his shoulders, and enunciating with every variety of movement
indicative of humiliation, these mystic words:

"Mee washeeuppee, signora, washeeuppee--e."

"What _is_ the matter now, Agatha?"

"Matter, why I woke up and found this man stealing the cups; I charged
him at once with my umbrella, but he dodged and I fell down, and the
umbrella has gone over the rock there. Take him up at once, Arthur--
there's the stolen property on