ged, and yet you go on expecting girls to be
the one thing that hasn't. It isn't common sense."

She was flinging out of the kitchen, when Mrs. Creddle caught her up
and put a motherly arm about her. "Good-bye, my lass. You think
nobody's felt like you before about a young man, but they have."

"I don't know what you're talking about. I've a bit of a head, but
that's all," said Carrie.

After that she went away. But all the same she was a little
comforted--real, disinterested love being the one ointment that can
soothe tender hearts not yet cauterized by pain.

So the day passed; then the next wore on towards evening, with no sign
of Godfrey. And all through the long hours, Caroline sat in the
pay-box looking out of her little window--small, set face, very pale,
and bright eyes intently watching--like some creature of the wild
behind a gap in the thick leafage.

Now it was past sunset. The residents of Thorhaven had taken
possession of their town again and the few visitors who remained were
sprinkled about inconspicuously among the audience in the concert
hall--the dominant factor no longer. Caroline exchanged greetings with
many of her acquaintances who emerged from the seclusion entailed by
letting rooms or vacating houses, and now shook their feathers like
hens coming off the nest with the pleasant knowledge of a nest-egg
successfully achieved. "Pretty good season, considering," ran the
verdict; but the general mind was a happy one, in spite of a certain
feeling of exhaustion. "Pickles!" said Lillie's mother. "I give you
my word, Carrie, one lot ate cheese and pickles after the promenade
every night to that degree it fair curdles my inside to think of. But
as I say, each person's inside is their own. Live and let live, say
I." And the good woman hurried on to spend part of the proceeds of
this wise neutrality, her Sunday hat still quite like new from lack of
use, and a holiday spirit radiating from her rather worn features.

Caroline had responded to all these greetings, but she was glad when
the concert began in the promenade hall and only a few stragglers
passed through the barrier at long intervals. Once more she was free
to resume that silent, intent watch which had occupied nearly the whole
day.

But night was coming on fast now--with a heavy ground-swell and a wild
streak of orange on the western sky. Caroline never thought once of
the sea, and certainly was not conscious of being affect