bles in a strong
tide, boiling at the base of dizzy cliffs. It rains and blows. A reef of
rocks, black and rough, stretches far into the sea. All along, and
among, and above these crags dash and flash, sweep and leap, swells,
wreaths, drifts of snowy spray. Some lone wanderer is out on these
rocks, treading with cautious step the wet, wild seaweed; glancing down
into hollows where the brine lies fathoms deep and emerald clear, and
seeing there wilder and stranger and huger vegetation than is found on
land, with treasure of shells--some green, some purple, some
pearly--clustered in the curls of the snaky plants. He hears a cry.
Looking up and forward, he sees, at the bleak point of the reef, a tall,
pale thing--shaped like man, but made of spray--transparent, tremulous,
awful. It stands not alone. They are all human figures that wanton in
the rocks--a crowd of foam-women--a band of white, evanescent Nereids.

Hush! Shut the book; hide it in the satchel. Martin hears a tread. He
listens. No--yes. Once more the dead leaves, lightly crushed, rustle on
the wood path. Martin watches; the trees part, and a woman issues
forth.

She is a lady dressed in dark silk, a veil covering her face. Martin
never met a lady in this wood before--nor any female, save, now and
then, a village girl come to gather nuts. To-night the apparition does
not displease him. He observes, as she approaches, that she is neither
old nor plain, but, on the contrary, very youthful; and, but that he now
recognizes her for one whom he has often wilfully pronounced ugly, he
would deem that he discovered traits of beauty behind the thin gauze of
that veil.

She passes him and says nothing. He knew she would. All women are proud
monkeys, and he knows no more conceited doll than that Caroline
Helstone. The thought is hardly hatched in his mind when the lady
retraces those two steps she had got beyond him, and raising her veil,
reposes her glance on his face, while she softly asks, "Are you one of
Mr. Yorke's sons?"

No human evidence would ever have been able to persuade Martin Yorke
that he blushed when thus addressed; yet blush he did, to the ears.

"I am," he said bluntly, and encouraged himself to wonder,
superciliously, what would come next.

"You are Martin, I think?" was the observation that followed.

It could not have been more felicitous. It was a simple sentence--very
artlessly, a little timidly, pronounced; but it chimed in harmony to the
you