ful.

Copplestone Grange stood three miles west of Bideford, and the house to
which the Youngs were going was close above Clovelly, so that a
distance of some seven miles separated them. To walk this twice for the
sake of lunching with a friend would seem to most young Americans too
formidable a task to be at all worth while, but to our sturdy English
pair it presented no difficulties. On they went, lightly and steadily,
Imogen's elastic steps keeping pace easily with her brother's longer
tread. There was a good deal of up and down hill to get over with, and
whenever they topped a rise, green downs ending in wooded cliffs could
be seen to the left, and beyond and below an expanse of white-flecked
shimmering sea. A salt wind from the channel blew in their faces, full
of coolness and refreshment, and there was no dust.

"I suppose we shall never see the ocean from where we are to live," said
Imogen, with a sigh.

"Well, hardly, considering it's about fifteen-hundred miles away."

"Fifteen hundred! oh, Lion, you are surely exaggerating. Why, the whole
of England is not so large as that, from Land's End to John O'Groat's
House."

"I should say not, nothing like it. Why Moggy, you've no idea how small
our 'right little, tight little island' really is. You could set it down
plump in some of the States, New York, for instance, and there would be
quite a tidy fringe of territory left all round it. Of course, morally,
we are the standard of size for all the world, but geographically,
phew!--our size is little, though our hearts are great."

"I think it's vulgar to be so big,--not that I believe half you say,
Lion. You've been over in America so long, and grown such a Yankee, that
you swallow everything they choose to tell you. I've always heard about
American brag--"

"My dear, there's no need to brag when the facts are there, staring you
in the face. It's just a matter of feet and inches,--any one can do the
measurement who has a tape-line. Wait till you see it. And as for its
being vulgar to be big, why is the 'right little, tight little' always
stretching out her long arms to rope in new territory, in that case, I
should like to know? It would be much eleganter to keep herself to
home--"

"Oh, don't talk that sort of rot; I hate to hear you."

"I must when you talk that kind of--well, let us say 'rubbish.' 'Rot' is
one of our choice terms which hasn't got over to the States yet. You're
as opiniated and 'narrer' as