elen Floyd."

"No," said I with decision and some anger, "I shall never marry Helen.
You do me too much honor. She would never look at me; and if she would
there is something within me which forbids my marrying a rich woman. But
it is nonsense. For Heaven's sake don't allude to it again! The man who
marries her will be, to my thinking, the most fortunate of men, but--"

"We won't talk about it," said she good-naturedly. "There comes Mr.
Thorpe to bid us good-morning. Astonishing how well he likes the walk to
The Headlands!"

It was Thorpe indeed, carelessly but irreproachably dressed as usual,
and looking at us with a smile of internal amusement, which he was
probably too well-bred to express in words, for he merely drawled a
good-morning and remarked on the beauty of the day.

"You're a famous pedestrian in these days, Thorpe," I said, rising with
a trifle of embarrassment from my seat as close to Miss Lenox's as the
rocks permitted, "and an early riser too. When I got up this morning at
half-past six I told myself that I should see nobody for three hours at
least, yet both Miss Lenox and you equal me in my love for the early
morning hours."

But Thorpe was indifferent, and I saw at once that his mind was too
preoccupied to allow of his wasting a thought upon the reason of my
rising earlier than usual. "If you got up at half-past six," said he
coolly, looking at his watch, "you must be ready for your breakfast, for
it is a quarter to nine."

"I shall go in," remarked Georgy, rising and shaking out her white
skirts and putting herself to rights generally after the manner in which
birds and women plume themselves. "Did you come to breakfast, Mr.
Thorpe?" she inquired with bare civility.

"I thought of dropping in," he returned; and as I assisted Miss Lenox up
the ledge I turned to see if he were following us. He seemed to be
waiting, however, for us to get away, and when I gained another distant
glimpse of him he was apparently searching for something in a crevice of
the rocks. Yet we were scarcely on the back piazza, before he had
rejoined us in high spirits, and I was conscious of a gleam in his eyes
which I had never seen before.

I could not resist speculations upon the reasons of his intimacy at the
house, but dismissed them all as idle, for I knew very well that the
habits of a young man at a watering-place are made by the necessity of
filling up the hours of the day with occupation. The cottagers have
pe