ry keen.
He, on the other hand, had more knowledge of the world, and in his rich
days had travelled a good deal, and so it came to pass that each could
always find something to tell the other. Never for one second were they
dull, not even when they sat for an hour or so in silence, for it was
the silence of complete companionship.

So the long morning would wear away all too quickly, and they would go
in to dinner, to be greeted with a cold smile by Elizabeth and heartily
enough by the old gentleman, who never thought of anything out of his
own circle of affairs. After dinner it was the same story. Either they
went walking to look for ferns and flowers, or perhaps Geoffrey took his
gun and hid behind the rocks for curlew, sending Beatrice, who knew the
coast by heart, a mile round or more to some headland in order to put
them on the wing. Then she would come back, springing towards him from
rock to rock, and crouch down beneath a neighbouring seaweed-covered
boulder, and they would talk together in whispers, or perhaps they would
not talk at all, for fear lest they should frighten the flighting birds.
And Geoffrey would first search the heavens for curlew or duck, and,
seeing none, would let his eyes fall upon the pure beauty of Beatrice's
face, showing so clearly against the tender sky, and wonder what she was
thinking about; till, suddenly feeling his gaze, she would turn with a
smile as sweet as the first rosy blush of dawn upon the waters, and ask
him what _he_ was thinking about. And he would laugh and answer "You,"
whereon she would smile again and perhaps blush a little, feeling glad
at heart, she knew not why.

Then came tea-time and the quiet, when they sat at the open window,
and Geoffrey smoked and listened to the soft surging of the sea and
the harmonious whisper of the night air in the pines. In the corner Mr.
Granger slept in his armchair, or perhaps he had gone to bed altogether,
for he liked to go to bed at half-past eight, as the old Herefordshire
farmer, his father, had done before him; and at the far end of the room
sat Elizabeth, doing her accounts by the light of a solitary candle,
or, if they failed her, reading some book of a devotional and inspired
character. But over the edge of the book, or from the page of crabbed
accounts, her eyes would glance continually towards the handsome pair in
the window-place, and she would smile as she saw that it went well. Only
they never saw the glances or noted