lk through the village, which, for present purposes
shall be called Weircombe. The more he saw of the place, the more he
loved it, and the more he was enchanted with its picturesque position.
In itself it was a mere cluster of little houses, dotted about on either
side of a great cleft in the rocks through which a clear mountain stream
tumbled to the sea,--but the houses were covered from basement to roof
with clambering plants and flowers, especially the wild fuschia, which,
with one or two later kinds of clematis and "morning glory" convolvolus,
were still in brilliant bloom when the mellow days of October began to
close in to the month's end. All the cottages in the "coombe" were
pretty, but to Helmsley's mind Mary Deane's was the prettiest, perched
as it was on a height overlooking the whole village and near to the tiny
church, which crowned the hill with a little tower rising heavenward.
The view of the ocean from Weircombe was very wide and grand,--on sunny
days it was like an endless plain of quivering turquoise-blue, with
white foam-roses climbing up here and there to fall and vanish
again,--and when the wind was high, it was like an onward sweeping array
of Titanic shapes clothed in silver armour and crested with snowy
plumes, all rushing in a wild charge against the shore, with such a
clatter and roar as often echoed for miles inland. To make his way
gradually down through the one little roughly cobbled street to the very
edge of the sea, was one of Helmsley's greatest pleasures, and he soon
got to know most of the Weircombe folk, while they in their turn, grew
accustomed to seeing him about among them, and treated him with a kindly
familiarity, almost as if he were one of themselves. And his new lease
of life was, to himself, singularly happy. He enjoyed every moment of
it,--every little incident was a novel experience, and he was never
tired of studying the different characters he met,--especially and above
all the character of the woman whose house was, for the time being, his
home, and who treated with him all the care and solicitude that a
daughter might show to her father. And--he was learning what might be
called a trade or a craft,--which fact interested and amused him. He who
had moved the great wheel of many trades at a mere touch of his finger,
was now docilely studying the art of basket-making, and training his
unaccustomed hands to the bending of withes and osiers,--he whose
deftly-laid financial sc