tly through him as if he were a man of glass and poor
quality of glass at that, and sauntered upstairs as if she were
greatly bored with life.

However, the top letter of her three was addressed very plainly to the
"Bishop of Bath and Wells," and Fergus Appleton had known the bishop,
and the bishop's wife, for several years. Accordingly, the post-bag
that night held two letters addressed to the Bishop's Palace, and
there was every prospect of an immediate answer to one of them.

IV

As for the country roundabout the Bexley Sands Inn, it is one of the
loveliest in Devonshire. It does not waste a moment, but, realizing
the brevity of week-end visits and the anxiety of tourists to see the
greatest amount of scenery in the shortest space, it begins its duty
at the very door of the inn and goes straight on from one stretch of
loveliness to another.

If you have been there, you remember that if you turn to the right and
go over the stone bridge that crosses the sleepy river, you are in the
very heart of beauty. You pick your way daintily along the edge of the
road, for it is carpeted so thickly with sea-pinks and yellow and
crimson crow's-foot that you scarcely know where to step. Sea-poppies
there are, too, groves of them, growing in the sandy stretches that
lie close to and border the wide, shingly beach. In summer the long,
low, narrow stone bridge crosses no water, but just here is an acre or
two of tall green rushes. You walk down the bank a few steps and sit
under the shadow of a wall. The green garden of rushes stretches in
front of you, with a still, shallow pool between you and it, a pool
floating with blossoming water-weeds. On the edge of the rushes grow
tall yellow irises in great profusion; the cuckoo's note sounds in the
distance; the sun, the warmth, the intoxication of color, make you
drowsy, and you lean back among the green things, close your eyes, and
then begin listening to the wonderful music of the rushes. A million
million reeds stirred by the breeze bend to and fro, making a faint
silken sound like that of a summer wave lapping the shore, but far
more ethereal.

Thomasina Tucker went down the road, laden with books, soon after
breakfast Monday morning. Appleton waited until after the post came
in, and having received much-desired letters and observed with joy the
week-enders setting forth, hither and thither on their return
journeys, followed what he supposed to be Miss Tucker's route; at
le