anything else, not even perceiving her companion's eyes fixed on her,
half curiously, half sadly.

'Well, Ethel,' at last he said.

'I never guessed it!' she said, with a gasp. 'No wonder Harry cannot
bear to be away from it. Must we leave it?' as he moved back.

'Only to smooth ground,' said Dr. Spencer; 'it is too dark to stay
here among the stones and crab-pots.'

The summer twilight was closing in; lights shining in the village
under the cliffs, and looking mysterious on distant points of the
coast; stars were shining forth in the pale blue sky, and the young
moon shedding a silver rippled beam on the water.

'If papa were but here!' said Ethel, wakening from another gaze, and
recollecting that she was not making herself agreeable.

'So you like the expedition?'

'The fit answer to that would be, "It is very pretty," as the Cockney
said to Coleridge at Lodore.'

'So I have converted a Stoneborough fungus!'

'What! to say the sea is glorious? A grand conversion!'

'To find anything superior to Minster Street.'