tly. But there was a
moisture in her eyes and a slight tremor in her voice which Rast
understood, or, rather, thought he understood. He took her hand and
pressed it warmly; the two fur gloves made the action awkward, but he
would not loosen his hold. His spirits rose, and he began to laugh, and
to drag his companion along at a rapid pace. They reached the edge of
the hill, and the steep descent opened before them; the girl's
remonstrances were in vain, and it ended in their racing down together
at a break-neck pace, reaching the bottom, laughing and breathless, like
two school-children. They were now on the second plateau, the level
proper of the island above the cliffs, which, high and precipitous on
three sides, sank down gradually to the southwestern shore, so that
one might land there, and drag a cannon up to the old earth work on the
summit--a feat once performed by British soldiers in the days when the
powers of the Old World were still fighting with each other for the New.
How quaint they now seem, those ancient proclamations and documents with
which a Spanish king grandly meted out this country from Maine to
Florida, an English queen divided the same with sweeping patents from
East to West, and a French monarch, following after, regranted the whole
virgin soil on which the banners of France were to be planted with
solemn Christian ceremony! They all took possession; they all planted
banners. Some of the brass plates they buried are turned up occasionally
at the present day by the farmer's plough, and, wiping his forehead, he
stops to spell out their high-sounding words, while his sunburned boys
look curiously over his shoulder. A place in the county museum is all
they are worth now.

Anne Douglas and Rast went through the fort grounds and down the hill
path, instead of going round by the road. The fort ladies, sitting by
their low windows, saw them, and commented.

"That girl does not appreciate young Pronando," said Mrs. Cromer. "I
doubt if she even sees his beauty."

"Perhaps it is just as well that she does not," replied Mrs. Rankin,
"for he must go away and live his life, of course; have his adventures."

"Why not she also?" said Mrs. Bryden, smiling.

"In the first place, she has no choice; she is tied down here. In the
second, she is a good sort of girl, without imagination or enthusiasm.
Her idea of life is to marry, have meat three times a week, fish three
times, lights out at ten o'clock, and, by w