to leave it off, and let
the Family discover her romantically enjoying some passable imitation of
her Secret World. I want the Family never to know of all that lay
between. I do want it all to come right. I'm going off to-day, and I may
not see her again. And I know hardly any trustable person but you."

"Right," said Mr. Russell.

He thought: It's too funny to be true, but if it isn't true, I shall be
surprised.

Kew enlarged to him on the details of his mission.

On the breakfast table, when they returned, they found a letter from Jay,
evidently written for private circulation in the Family.

Dear Kew--I have just come in from a walk almost as exciting as it was
beautiful. We walked through our village, which clings to both sides of
a crack-like harbour that might just contain a carefully navigated
walnut-shell. The village is grey and white, all its walls are
whitewashed, all its roofs are slate with cushions of stone-crop
clinging to them. Sea-thistles grow outside its doors, seagulls are its
only birds. The slope on which it stands is so steep that the main road
is on a level with the roofs on one side, and if you were absentminded,
you might walk on to a roof and fall down a chimney before you became
aware that you had strayed from the street. But we were not
absent-minded. We sang Loud Songs all the way. We ran across the grass
after the shadows of the round clouds that bowled across the sky. In
single file we followed the dog Trelawney after the seagulls. Everything
was so clear that we could see the little rare island that keeps itself
to itself on our horizon. I don't know its name; they say it bears a
town and a post-office and a parson, but I don't think this is true. I
think that island is an intermittent dream of ours. When you get beyond
the village, the cliff leaves off indulging in coves and harbours and
such frivolities, and decides to look upon itself seriously as a giant
wall against a giant sea. Only it occasionally defeats its own object,
because it stands up so straight that the sea finds it easier to knock
down. On a point of cliff there was a Lorelei seagull standing, with its
eye on Trelawney. It had pale eyes, and a red drop on its beak. And
Trelawney, being a man-dog, did what the seagull meant him to do. He ran
for it, he ran too far, and fell over the edge. Well, this is not a
tragic incident, only an exciting one. Trelawney fell on to a ledge
about ten foot below the top of the cliff