he power of the place, as well as her own
wish to look lovely, and to be loved beyond reason, nevertheless came
along very strictly, and kept herself most careful not to look about
at all. At any rate, not towards the houses, where people live, and
therefore must look out. At the breadth of sea, with distant ships
jotted against the sky like chips, or dotted with boats like bits of
stick; also at the playing of the little waves that ran at the bottom
of the sands, just now, after one another with a lively turn, and then
jostled into white confusion, like a flock of sheep huddled up and
hurrying from a dog--at these and at the warm clouds loitering in the
sun she might use her bright eyes without prejudice. But soon she had to
turn them upon a nearer object.

"How absorbed we are in distant contemplation! A happy sign, I hope, in
these turbulent times. Miss Darling, will you condescend to include me
in your view?"

"I only understand simple English," answered Dolly. "Most of the other
comes from France, perhaps. We believed that you were gone abroad
again."

"I wish that the subject had more interest for you," Carne answered,
with his keen eyes fixed on hers, in the manner that half angered and
half conquered her. "My time is not like that of happy young ladies,
with the world at their feet, and their chief business in it, to
discover some new amusement."

"You are not at all polite. But you never were that, in spite of your
French education."

"Ah, there it is again! You are so accustomed to the flattery of great
people that a simple-minded person like myself has not the smallest
chance of pleasing you. Ah, well! It is my fate, and I must yield to
it."

"Not at all," replied Dolly, who could never see the beauty of that kind
of resignation, even in the case of Dan Tugwell. "There is no such thing
as fate for a strong-willed man, though there may be for poor women."

"May I tell you my ideas about that matter? If so, come and rest for
a moment in a quiet little shelter where the wind is not so cold. For
there is no such thing as Spring in England."

Dolly hesitated, and with the proverbial result. To prove himself more
polite than she supposed, Caryl Carne, hat in hand and with low bows
preserving a respectful distance, conducted her to a little place of
shelter, so pretty and humble and secluded by its own want of art, and
simplicity of skill, that she was equally pleased and surprised with it.

"Why, it is