his
subject, however she might try to occupy them with others, and the
tumult of her mind reacted upon her nerves. She could scarcely bear to
sit still. It rained all afternoon and evening, and she could not go
out, so that in the usual course of events she would have read aloud to
her mother part of the time, and for the other part sat by the window
with her crochet in her hand, but to-day she wandered about perpetually.
She even opened the piano and began to sing her merriest old songs, but
that soon ceased. She found the novel they were reading insufferably
stupid, and took up a volume of Shakespeare for refreshment, but it
opened naturally to the 'Merchant of Venice,' and, to the page where
Portia says:--

"Though for myself alone,
I would not be ambitious in my wish,
To wish myself much better, yet for you
I would be trebled twenty times myself;
A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich;
That only to stand high on your account,
I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends,
Exceed account."

She shut the book--yes, this was a true woman, who for true love thought
herself and all she possessed too little to give in return; but for the
little, foolish, blind souls that could not see till too late, what
_was_ true love, she was no fit company.

The evening passed on wearily, and Mrs. Costello, who had her own share
of disquiet also, though it was mixed with a little amusement at the
impetuosity of these young people, who were so dear to her and so
troublesome, did very little in the way of consolation.

Next day, the weather had cleared again, and was very lovely. In the
afternoon, Lucia persuaded Mrs. Costello to go with her to the beach.
There they got chairs, and sat for a long while enjoying the gay, and
often comical, scene round them. Numbers of people were bathing, and
beside the orthodox bathers, there was a party of little boys wading
about with bare legs, and playing all sorts of pranks in the water.

A little way to the left of where they sat, there was a curious kind of
wooden pier, which ran far away out into the sea and terminated in a
small square wooden building. The whole thing was raised on piles about
five or six feet above the present level of the water which flowed
underneath it. The pier itself, in fact, was only a narrow bridge or
footpath railed partly on one side only, partly on both, and with an
oddly unsafe and yet tempting look about it. L