t we are conspicuous
objects against the sky to them. Now, it seems to rain upon them, and
they put on overcoats and open umbrellas. They vanish and go below--all
but that one who has borrowed the glass. He is a slim young fellow, and
still watches us.'

Elfride grew pale, and shifted her little feet uneasily.

Knight lowered the glass.

'I think we had better return,' he said. 'That cloud which is raining on
them may soon reach us. Why, you look ill. How is that?'

'Something in the air affects my face.'

'Those fair cheeks are very fastidious, I fear,' returned Knight
tenderly. 'This air would make those rosy that were never so before, one
would think--eh, Nature's spoilt child?'

Elfride's colour returned again.

'There is more to see behind us, after all,' said Knight.

She turned her back upon the boat and Stephen Smith, and saw, towering
still higher than themselves, the vertical face of the hill on the
right, which did not project seaward so far as the bed of the valley,
but formed the back of a small cove, and so was visible like a concave
wall, bending round from their position towards the left.

The composition of the huge hill was revealed to its backbone and marrow
here at its rent extremity. It consisted of a vast stratification of
blackish-gray slate, unvaried in its whole height by a single change of
shade.

It is with cliffs and mountains as with persons; they have what is
called a presence, which is not necessarily proportionate to their
actual bulk. A little cliff will impress you powerfully; a great one not
at all. It depends, as with man, upon the countenance of the cliff.

'I cannot bear to look at that cliff,' said Elfride. 'It has a horrid
personality, and makes me shudder. We will go.'

'Can you climb?' said Knight. 'If so, we will ascend by that path over
the grim old fellow's brow.'

'Try me,' said Elfride disdainfully. 'I have ascended steeper slopes
than that.'

From where they had been loitering, a grassy path wound along inside a
bank, placed as a safeguard for unwary pedestrians, to the top of the
precipice, and over it along the hill in an inland direction.

'Take my arm, Miss Swancourt,' said Knight.

'I can get on better without it, thank you.'

When they were one quarter of the way up, Elfride stopped to take
breath. Knight stretched out his hand.

She took it, and they ascended the remaining slope together. Reaching
the very top, they sat down to rest by mutual