colour, and over it a cream or pale-fawn-coloured cloak with hood,
which with its lace border seemed just the right setting for the
delicate puritan face. She walked in silence while they talked and
talked, ever in grave subdued tones. Indeed it would not have been
seemly for her to open her lips in such company. I called her
Priscilla, but she was also like Milton's pensive nun, devout and pure,
only her looks were not commercing with the skies; they were generally
cast down, although it is probable that they did occasionally venture
to glance at the groups of merry pink-legged children romping with the
waves below.

I had seen her three or four or more times on the front before we
became acquainted; and she too had noticed me, just raising her blue
eyes to mine when we passed one another, with a shy sweet look of
recognition in them--a questioning look; so that we were not exactly
strangers. Then, one morning, I sat on the front when the black-clothed
group came by, deep in serious talk as usual, the silent child with
them, and after a turn or two they sat down beside me. The tide was at
its full and children were coming down to their old joyous pastime of
paddling. They were a merry company. After watching them I glanced at
my little neighbour and caught her eyes, and she knew what the question
in my mind was--Why are not you with them? And she was pleased and
troubled at the same time, and her face was all at once in a glow of
beautiful colour; it was the colour of the almond blossom;--her sister
flower on this occasion.

A day or two later we were more fortunate. I went before breakfast to
the beach and was surprised to find her there watching the tide coming
in; in a moment of extreme indulgence her mother, or her people, had
allowed her to run down to look at the sea for a minute by herself. She