, Marcus Aurelius, had been his masters: their words
were ever present with him. "It is not possible that the nature of the
universe, either through want of power or want of skill, has made a
mistake;" "nothing happens to any man which he is not formed by nature
to bear,"--were hourly watchwords of thought with him. In this regard he
and Hetty were alike, though they had reached their common standpoint
by different roads: he by education and reasoning, and a profound
admiration for the ancient classics; she by instinct and healthfulness
of soul, and a profound love for that old Massachusetts militia-man, her
grandfather.

"The Runs" was, as Hetty had said, one of the loveliest of sea-side
places. Dr. Eben, who was familiar with all the well-known sea-side
resorts in America, was forced to admit that this little nook had a
charm of its own, unlike all the others. The epithet "hugged in," which
Hetty had used, was the very phrase to best convey it. It was at the
mouth of a small river, which, as it drew near the sea, widened so
suddenly that it looked like a lake. The country, for miles about, was
threaded by little streams of water: which of them were sea making up,
and which were river coming down, it was hard to tell. In early morning
they were blue as the sky overhead; at sunset they glowed like a fiery
net, suddenly flung over the grasses and rushes. Great flocks of marsh
birds dwelt year after year in these cool, green labyrinths, and made
no small part of the changeful beauty of the picture, rising sometimes,
suddenly, in a dusky cloud, and floating away, soaring, and sinking, and
at last dropping out of sight again, as suddenly as they had risen.
The meadows were vivid green in June, vivid claret in October: no other
grass spreads such splendor of tint on so superb a palette, as the
salt-marsh grasses on the low, wide stretches of some of New England's
southern shores. Sailing down this river, and keeping close to the
left-hand bank, one came almost unawares on a sharp bend to the left:
here the river suddenly ended, and the sea began; the rushes and reeds
and high grasses ceased; a low, rocky barrier stayed them. Rounding this
point, lo, your boat swayed instantly to the left: a gentle surf-wave
took possession of you, and irresistibly bore you towards a yellow
sand beach, which curved inward like a reaper's sickle, not more than a
quarter of a mile long, from the handle to the shining point; smooth and
glistenin