iant emotion and an instinct, deriving from it, to
draw even closer to that Everlasting Beauty of Things which is uncreated
by and independent of the will and work of man, she ran down the slope,
and sitting on the shingle slipped off her shoes and stockings. Took off
her hat, too, and leaving the lot lying there, just above high-tide mark,
gathered her skirts in one hand, and, bare-headed thus and bare-footed,
danced out over the wet gleaming sands a graceful flying figure, until
the little waves played and purred about her ankles. Her action was
symbolic, born of the gay worship welling up within her, a giving of
herself to the shining infinite of Nature as just now manifest--things
divine and eternal glimmering through at her--in this fair hour of
solitude and brooding peace.

Till her mood softened, Damaris danced thus alone, unwitnessed on the
shore. Then, as she sobered, happy still though the crisis of ecstasy had
passed, smaller seeings began to charm her fancy and her eyes.--Pinkish
yellow starfish, long ribbons of madder-red or emerald seaweed, their
colours the more living and vivid for the clear water covering them.
Presently a company of five birds--their mottled brown and olive bodies
raised on stilt-like legs thin as a straw--claimed her notice. So
bewitched was she by their quaint and pretty ways, that she could not but
follow them as they chased one another in and out of the rippling waves,
ran quickly and bowed catching something eatable floating upon the tide,
scattered and then joined up into a joyous chorus of association with
gentle twittering cries. Watching them, dreaming, standing now and again
looking out over the sweet wonder of the placid sea, sometimes wading
ankle deep, sometimes walking on the firm floor of uncovered sand,
Damaris passed onward losing count of time.

The birds led her eastward, up channel, to the half-mile distant nose of
the Bar, round which the rivers, released at last from their narrow
channel, sweep out into Marychurch Bay. Here, on a sudden, they took
wing, and Damaris looking after them, bade them an unwilling farewell,
for their innocent society had been sweet. And with that she became aware
she was really quite tired and would be glad to rest awhile, the
afternoon being young yet, before turning homeward. The longer she stayed
the more hope there was of finding Jennifer at the ferry; and more than
ever, the glamour of her wild hour of Nature worship still upon her,