void of fear, and gazing into the deep of death, Frida
loved the pair of sea gulls hovering halfway between her and the soft
gray sea. These good birds had found a place well suited for their
nesting, and sweetly screamed to one another that it was a contract.
Frida watched how proud they were, and how they kept their strong wings
sailing and their gray backs flat and quivering, while with buoyant
bosom each made circles round the other.

As she watched, she saw the turning of the tide below them. The streaky
bends of curdled water, lately true as fairy-rings, stopped and wavered,
and drew inward on their flowing curves, and outward on the side toward
the ebb. Then the south wind brought the distant toll of her father's
turret-clock, striking noon with slow deliberation and dead certainty.

Frida made one little turn toward her bower behind the cliff, where the
many sweet words spoken drew her to this last of hope. All was silent.
There was no one Now was the time to go home at last.

Suddenly she felt a heavy drag upon her velvet skirt. Ancient Lear
had escaped from the chain she had put on him, and, more trusty than
mankind, was come to keep his faith with her.

"You fine old dog, it is too late! The clock has struck. The tide has
turned. There is no one left to care for me; and I have ruined everyone.
Good-by, you only true one!"

Submissive as he always was, the ancient dog lay down when touched, and
drew his grizzled eyelids meekly over his dim and sunken eyes. Before he
lifted them again Frida was below the sea gulls, and beneath the waves
they fished.

Lear, with a puzzled sniff, arose and shook his head, and peered, with
his old eyes full of wistful wonder, down the fearful precipice. Seeing
something, he made his mind, up, gave one long re-echoed howl, then
tossed his mane, like a tawny wave, and followed down the death-leap.

Neither body was ever found; and the whole of this might not have been
known so clearly as it is known, unless it had happened that Mother
Eyebright, growing uneasy, came round the corner just in time to be too
late. She, like a sensible woman, never dreamed of jumping after them,
but ran home so fast that she could not walk to church for three months
afterward; and when her breath came back was enabled to tell tenfold of
all she had seen.

One of the strangest things in life is the way in which we mortals take
the great and fatal blows of life.

For instance, the baron was sud