st tell you
that she took me to see her baby, a nice little lively thing, poor
little dear! and when we were alone, she spoke rather more, begged me
to send her godson to see her, thanked me for coming, but crying stopped
her from saying more. I could grow very fond of her. No, I don't wonder
at him, for there is a great charm in anything so soft and dependent.

Decidedly, Mary Ross had been right when she said, that except Sir Guy,
there was no one so difficult to know as Amy.

In the afternoon, Charles insisted on Amabel's going out for fresh
air and exercise, and she liked the idea of a solitary wandering; but
Philip, to her surprise, offered to come with her, and she was too glad
to see him exert himself, to regret the musings she had hoped for; so
out they went, after opening the window to give Charles what he called
an airing, and he said, that in addition he should 'hirple about a
little to explore the ground-floor of the house.'

'We must contrive some way for him to drive out,' said Philip, as he
crossed the court with Amabel; 'and you too. There is no walk here, but
up hill or down.'

Up-hill they went, along the path leading up the green slope, from which
the salt wind blew refreshingly. In a few minutes, Amabel found herself
on a spot which thrilled her all over.

There lay before her Guy's own Redclyffe bay; the waves lifting their
crests and breaking, the surge resounding, the sea-birds skimming round,
the Shag Rock dark and rugged, the scene which seemed above all the
centre of his home affections, which he had so longed to show her,
that it had cost him an effort on his death-bed to resign the hope;
the leaping waves that he said he would not change for the white-headed
mountains. And now he was lying among those southern mountains, and she
stood in the spot where he had loved to think of seeing her; and with
Philip by her side. His sea, his own dear sea, the vision of which had
cheered, his last day, like the face of a dear old friend; his sea,
rippling and glancing on, unknowing that the eyes that had loved it so
well would gaze on it no more; the wind that he had longed for to
cool his fevered brow, the rock which had been like a playmate in his
boyhood, and where he had perilled his life, and rescued so many. It
was one of the seasons when a whole gush of fresh perceptions of his
feelings, like a new meeting with himself, would come on her, her best
of joys; and there she stood, gazing fixedly,