ng accepted a seat in the Benson carriage for a drive on
the Ocean Road. He who takes this drive for the first time is enchanted
with the scene, and it has so much variety, deliciousness in curve and
winding, such graciousness in the union of sea and shore, such charm of
color, that increased acquaintance only makes one more in love with it. A
good part of its attraction lies in the fickleness of its aspect. Its
serene and soft appearance might pall if it were not now and then, and
often suddenly, and with little warning, transformed into a wild coast,
swept by a tearing wind, enveloped in a thick fog, roaring with the noise
of the angry sea slapping the rocks and breaking in foam on the fragments
its rage has cast down. This elementary mystery and terror is always
present, with one familiar with the coast, to qualify the gentleness of
its lovelier aspects. It has all moods. Perhaps the most exhilarating
is that on a brilliant day, when shore and sea sparkle in the sun, and
the waves leap high above the cliffs, and fall in diamond showers.

This Sunday the shore was in its most gracious mood, the landscape as if
newly created. There was a light, luminous fog, which revealed just
enough to excite the imagination, and refined every outline and softened
every color. Mr. King and Irene left the carriage to follow the road,
and wandered along the sea path. What softness and tenderness of color
in the gray rocks, with the browns and reds of the vines and lichens!
They went out on the iron fishing-stands, and looked down at the shallow
water. The rocks under water took on the most exquisite shades--purple
and malachite and brown; the barnacles clung to them; the long sea-weeds,
in half a dozen varieties, some in vivid colors, swept over them, flowing
with the restless tide, like the long locks of a drowned woman's hair.
King, who had dabbled a little in natural history, took great delight in
pointing out to Irene this varied and beautiful life of the sea; and the
girl felt a new interest in science, for it was all pure science, and she
opened her heart to it, not knowing that love can go in by the door of
science as well as by any other opening. Was Irene really enraptured by
the dear little barnacles and the exquisite sea-weeds? I have seen a
girl all of a flutter with pleasure in a laboratory when a young chemist
was showing her the retorts and the crooked tubes and the glass wool and
the freaks of color which the alkalies pla