e obvious that here she would have to remain for the three days,
unless her friends should think fit to rig out one of the island' sailing-
boats and come to fetch her--a not very likely contingency, the sea
distance being nearly forty miles.

Baptista, however, had been detained in Pen-zephyr on more than one
occasion before, either on account of bad weather or some such reason as
the present, and she was therefore not in any personal alarm. But, as
she was to be married on the following Wednesday, the delay was certainly
inconvenient to a more than ordinary degree, since it would leave less
than a day's interval between her arrival and the wedding ceremony.

Apart from this awkwardness she did not much mind the accident. It was
indeed curious to see how little she minded. Perhaps it would not be too
much to say that, although she was going to do the critical deed of her
life quite willingly, she experienced an indefinable relief at the
postponement of her meeting with Heddegan. But her manner after making
discovery of the hindrance was quiet and subdued, even to passivity
itself; as was instanced by her having, at the moment of receiving
information that the steamer had sailed, replied 'Oh,' so coolly to the
porter with her luggage, that he was almost disappointed at her lack of
disappointment.

The question now was, should she return again to Mrs. Wace, in the
village of Lower Wessex, or wait in the town at which she had arrived.
She would have preferred to go back, but the distance was too great;
moreover, having left the place for good, and somewhat dramatically, to
become a bride, a return, even for so short a space, would have been a
trifle humiliating.

Leaving, then, her boxes at the station, her next anxiety was to secure a
respectable, or rather genteel, lodging in the popular seaside resort
confronting her. To this end she looked about the town, in which, though
she had passed through it half-a-dozen times, she was practically a
stranger.

Baptista found a room to suit her over a fruiterer's shop; where she made
herself at home, and set herself in order after her journey. An early
cup of tea having revived her spirits she walked out to reconnoitre.

Being a schoolmistress she avoided looking at the schools, and having a
sort of trade connection with books, she avoided looking at the
booksellers; but wearying of the other shops she inspected the churches;
not that for her own part she cared much a