sed with awe and admiration as could be wished. Indeed, before
they parted, if any one was disquieted, discomfited, or otherwise
damaged, I fancy it was--_not_ the loveliest Margaret. From my slight
acquaintance with that tremendous philosopher, supposing that he were
turned loose among a bevy of perfectly well-educated women, and meant
mischief, I should be disposed to lay longer odds against his chances
than I would against those of many men who have never read one word of
Balzac, Michelet, or Kant.

Still, as was aforesaid, in the days of high art and high farming, high
physiology is clearly the thing to go for. So, for my shortcomings, to
all critics--ethic, dialectic, aesthetic, and ascetic--I cry _mea culpa_,
thus audibly.

Nevertheless, while they are waiting for her at Dorade, we will try to
sketch Cecil Tresilyan.

Her father died when she was too young to remember him, and the first
fourteen years of her life were spent almost entirely in the old Cornish
manor-house from which her family took its name. That great, rambling
pile stood at the head of a glen, terraced at first into gardens, and
then thickly wooded, and stretching down to the shore. There was a small
bay just here, the mouth of which curved inward very abruptly. It seemed
as if the black cliffs had caught the sea in a trap, and stood forward
to keep the outlet fast forever: the waves were free to come and go for
a certain distance, but never to rave or rebel any more: when their
brethren of the open main went out to war, the captives inside might
hear the din, but not break out to join them; they could only leap up
weakly against their prison bars. There was nothing at all remarkable in
the house itself, except its furniture and panelings of black oak, and
two pictures, to which was attached a story bearing on the hereditary
failing which had made the family proverbial. The first was the likeness
of a lovely girl, in the court dress of James the Second's time, with
beautiful hazel eyes, half timid, half trusting, like a pet doe's. The
second represented a woman, perhaps of middle age: in this the hood of a
dark gray dress was drawn far forward, and under it the eyes shone out
of the colorless face with a fixed expression of helpless, agonized
terror, as of one fascinated by some ghostly apparition. You were sorry
when you realized that they were portraits of the same person.

Sir Ewes Tresilyan was a man of strong passions and rather weak
brai