le you use."

Mary Grant's brown eyes danced with pleasure, and in the lamplight, I
noticed for the first time, how very fair her skin was,--cream and pink
roses,--tanned slightly where the sun had got at it, but without a
blemish, without even a freckle, and this despite the fact that she
seldom took any precautions against the depredations of Old Sol.

"I shall be glad indeed. You are very kind; for what you propose will
be a treat of treats, especially if we catch some fish."

She held out her hand to me. Mine touched hers and a thrill ran and
sang through my fingers, through my body to my brain; the thrill of a
strange sensation I had never before experienced. I gazed at her
without speaking.

She raised her eyes and mine held hers for the briefest of moments.

To me it seemed as if a world of doubt and uncertainty were being swept
away and I were looking into eyes I had known through all the ages.

Then her golden lashes dropped and hid those wonderful eyes from me.

Impulsively, yet fully knowing what I did, I raised her hand and
touched the back of her fingers with my lips.

She did not draw her hand away. She smiled across to me ever so
sweetly and turned from me into the darkness.

Not for an hour did I wake from my reveries. The spell of new
influences was upon me; the moon, climbing up among the scudding
night-clouds, never seemed so bright before and the phosphorescent glow
and silver streaks on the water never so beautiful.

A light travelled across the parlour over the way. I saw Miss Grant
seat herself by the piano, and soon the whole air became charged with
the softest, sweetest cadences,--elusive, faint and fairylike.

How I enjoyed them! How old Jake on the cliffs must have enjoyed them!
What an artist the lady was, and how she excelled herself that evening!

I lay in a transport of pleasure, hoping that the music might never
cease; but, alas for such vain hoping,--it whispered and died away,
leaving behind it only the stillness of the night, the sighing of the
wind in the tops of the tall creaking firs, the chirping of the
crickets under the stones and the call of the night bird to her mate.

I raised my eyes across to the cottage.

In the lamplight, I could discern the figure of the musician. She was
seated on the piano stool, with her hands clasped in front of her and
gazing out through the window into the darkness of the night.

Surely it was a night when hypnotising influen