can get, and don't fuss!"

It is the attitude of all men who come back to civilisation after a long
absence, and in Miles' case it could truthfully be said that his
extravagances benefited other people infinitely more than himself.

It was a very merry party which travelled down to Franton a few days
later, and the comfort and grandeur of the hotel exceeded even the
girls' expectation. All the bedrooms secured were situated on the
front, and were provided with dear little balconies, on which they could
sit and gaze over the sea. The drawing-room was a gorgeous apartment--
all yellow satin and white archways, and banks of flowers. The dining-
hall was dotted over with little tables, a larger one in a bay-window
being reserved for the Trevor party. The lounge was provided with
innumerable couches and wicker chairs, in which one could loll at ease,
scrutinising the other visitors, or submitting to scrutiny on one's own
account, with a delightful consciousness of a Regent Street blouse. The
gardens and shrubberies would have been quite irresistible, had it not
been that just beyond their bounds stretched the firm golden sands, on
which the white-crested waves broke with a siren sound.

"Go to bed without a walk on the shore by moonlight--I can't and
_won't_, not if ten fathers, and fifty thousand mothers went down on
their knees and implored me to be prudent!" asserted audacious Jill, as
she finished her after-dinner coffee; whereupon Dr Trevor laughed good-
naturedly, and said--

"There's only one father present, and the only knees he possesses are
much too stiff to exert themselves in a hopeless cause! Run along, my
dear; I should have felt the same at your age. Put on a shawl. Miles,
you will see that your sisters don't run wild, and that they come in by
a sensible hour."

So the four young people wandered along the sands, and watched the
moonlight play upon the waters; but there was no need of the last part
of the doctor's warning, for even Jill grew quiet and subdued, and
forgot to tease and banter. Coming fresh from the noisy, crowded city,
there was something inexpressibly impressive in the long stretch of
sand, the dark, mysterious waters, the loneliness, the silence, broken
only by the rhythmic break of the waves.

Miles walked alone, his face lifted now and again to the top of the
cliff on which stood the villa which the Alliots had hired for the
summer months. Betty looked across the waste of wate