rown
painting which they offered to the tourist. The movement in search of
something new was of course infinitely small, affecting only a handful
of well-to-do people. It began by a few schoolmasters serving their
passage out to South America as the pursers of tramp steamers. They
returned in time for the summer term, when their stories of the
splendours and hardships of life at sea, the humours of sea-captains,
the wonders of night and dawn, and the marvels of the place delighted
outsiders, and sometimes found their way into print. The country itself
taxed all their powers of description, for they said it was much bigger
than Italy, and really nobler than Greece. Again, they declared that the
natives were strangely beautiful, very big in stature, dark, passionate,
and quick to seize the knife. The place seemed new and full of new forms
of beauty, in proof of which they showed handkerchiefs which the women
had worn round their heads, and primitive carvings coloured bright
greens and blues. Somehow or other, as fashions do, the fashion spread;
an old monastery was quickly turned into a hotel, while a famous line of
steamships altered its route for the convenience of passengers.

Oddly enough it happened that the least satisfactory of Helen Ambrose's
brothers had been sent out years before to make his fortune, at any rate
to keep clear of race-horses, in the very spot which had now become so
popular. Often, leaning upon the column in the verandah, he had watched
the English ships with English schoolmasters for pursers steaming into
the bay. Having at length earned enough to take a holiday, and being
sick of the place, he proposed to put his villa, on the slope of the
mountain, at his sister's disposal. She, too, had been a little stirred
by the talk of a new world, where there was always sun and never a fog,
which went on around her, and the chance, when they were planning where
to spend the winter out of England, seemed too good to be missed.
For these reasons she determined to accept Willoughby's offer of free
passages on his ship, to place the children with their grand-parents,
and to do the thing thoroughly while she was about it.

Taking seats in a carriage drawn by long-tailed horses with pheasants'
feathers erect between their ears, the Ambroses, Mr. Pepper, and Rachel
rattled out of the harbour. The day increased in heat as they drove
up the hill. The road passed through the town, where men seemed to be
beating b