rom seaward deep breaths
of the east wind laden with the wild life of ocean and the freedom of
boundless space.

"Here we have it!" remarked Monsieur, somewhat irrelevantly, as he
hastily unbuckled the apron and spread it over his own lap and
Miselle's, just in time to catch a heavy dash of rain.

"I am afraid it is going to be stormy, after all," piteously murmured
Miselle.

"I told you we should have fog-showers, you know," suggested Monsieur,
with a quiet smile.

"But what must we do?--go home?"

"No, indeed!--we will go to Sandwich, let it rain twice, four times as
hard as this,--unless, indeed, Madame gives orders to the contrary. What
say you, Madame?"

"I say, let us go on for the present. We can turn round at any time, if
it becomes necessary"; and Madame smiled benevolently at Miselle, down
whose face the rain-drops streamed, but who stoutly asserted,--

"Oh, this is nothing. Only a fog-shower, you know. We shall have it fine
directly."

"Not till we are out of Eel River. This valley gathers all the clouds,
and they often get rain here when the sun is shining everywhere else."

"A regular vale of tears! Happy the remnant of the world that dwelleth
not in Eel River!" murmured Miselle, surreptitiously pulling her
water-proof cloak about her shoulders.

"Let me help you. Really, though, you are getting very wet, dear,"
remonstrated Optima.

"Not in the least. I enjoy it excessively. Besides, the shower is just
over.--What church is that, Monsieur, with the very disproportionate
steeple?" inquired Miselle, pointing to a square gray box, surmounted by
a ludicrously short and obtuse spire, expressive of a certain dogged
obstinacy of purpose.

"The church is an Orthodox meetinghouse, and the steeple is Orthodox
too,--for the Cape. Anything else would blow down in the spring gales.
Park-Street steeple, for instance, would stand a very poor chance here."

"Yes," said Miselle, vaguely, and she felt in her heart how this great
ocean that dwarfs or prostrates the works of man replaces them by a
temple builded in his own soul of proportions so lofty that God Himself
may dwell visibly therein.

And now, having traversed the tearful valley, the road wound up the
Delectable Mountains beyond, and so into the pine forest, through whose
clashing needles glints of sunshine began to creep, while overhead the
gray shaded softly into pearl and dazzling white and palest blue.

"There are deer in these Sandwich wood