end into
trouble.

III

"I've been thinking a good deal about it, and I really don't see any
reason why we should wait,"--said Graeme, looking at Margaret.

And Miss Penny said "Hear! Hear!" so energetically that Margaret
laughed merrily.

"We are both of one mind in the matter, an life is all too short at
its longest, and most especially when it offers you all its very best
with both hands--"

"Hear! _Hear_!" said Miss Penny.

"And time is fleeting," concluded the orator.

"And that kettle is boiling over again," and Miss Penny jumped up and
ran to the rescue.

They were spending a long day in Grande Greve--the spot that had
special claims upon their liking since their landing there after that
memorable trip to Brecqhou. They had brought a full day's rations,
prepared with solicitous discrimination by Graeme himself, and a
kettle, and a great round tin can of fresh water from the well at
Dixcart, and a smaller one of milk.

So high were their spirits that they had even scoffed at Johnnie
Vautrin's intimation that he had seen a magpie that morning, and it
had flown over their house. But magpie or no magpie they were bent on
enjoyment, and they left Johnnie and Marielihou muttering black spells
into the hawthorn hedge, and went off with the dogs down the scented
lanes, through the valley where the blue-bells draped the hillsides in
such masses that they walked as it were between a blue heaven and a
blue earth, and so by the meadow-paths to the Coupee.

Their descent of the rough path down the side of the Coupee with all
this impedimenta had not been without incident, but eventually every
thing and person had been got to the bottom in safety.

Then, while the dogs raced in the lip of the tide and Scamp filled the
bay with his barkings, the girls had disappeared among the tumbled
rocks under the cliff, and Graeme had sought seclusion at the other
end of the bay. And presently they had met again on the gleaming
stretch of sand; he in orthodox tight-fitting dark-blue elastic web
which set off his long limbs and broad shoulders to great advantage;
Hennie Penny in pale blue, her somewhat plump figure redeemed by the
merry face which recognised all its owner's deficiencies and more than
made up for them all; Margaret, tall, slim, shapely, revealing fresh
graces with every movement,--a sea-goddess in pale pink--a sight to
set the heart of a marble statue plunging with delight.

Hennie Penny persisted in wearin