ical life full of deep and passionate
delight--never again to stand the peer of all my mates, running the
familiar races, playing the familiar games. I did not know what a
changed life awaited me, and I looked forward to my opening vistas of
a bright future with longings inconceivably sweet.

I reached The Headlands one fine day in October a little past noon.
Mr. Raymond's carriage met me at the station, and a grave elderly
servant, who told me his name was Mills, put me inside and assumed
all responsibilities concerning my luggage. I had plenty of time to
remember with regret our homely, pleasant life at Belfield, and recall
Thorpe's words when he heard that I had been invited to The Headlands.
"It will be a glimpse of another life," he had remarked with his usual
air of consummate knowledge of the world. "Even I, who am used to
living on terms of intimacy with men of all ranks and positions, find
it difficult to adjust the balance in that quiet, stately house, where
everything goes on oiled wheels."

"But what makes it hard to get along?" I had inquired with a sort of
awe.

"Oh, I can't describe it," he had returned with a wave of his white
hand, "but you'll soon experience it for yourself."

But as I went on and the great sea opened before my eyes, I quite
forgot my fears in the pleasure of such wide horizons, such
magnificent scenery. The ocean was here in all its grandeur, yet there
was no bleakness or bareness in these rock-bound shores, softly veiled
in the haze of the October afternoon. The voices of the breakers
greeted me as something vaguely familiar: I seemed to have been
listening for them all my life. In such joys as I felt that day eyes
and ears do but little--imagination works most wonders.

I had not noticed, so raptly was I watching the fleeting tints of
opal, steel and blue which chased each other along the smooth slow
waves, that we had entered enclosed grounds, and when the carriage
stopped suddenly before a wide, pillared portico I was wholly taken by
surprise. Mills opened the carriage-door, and I got down with a blank,
dreamy feeling, and followed him up the steps through the wide portal
and along the hall. He ushered me into the library, and left me while
he went to announce my arrival.

I sat perfectly still in the lofty Gothic room. It was lined with
books except on the west side, where were long oriel windows of
stained glass, with figures of saints glorious in blue and gold and
crims