low itself and break, and curve and hollow itself and break again.
The sweet sea-breeze sang in her ears, and braced her with its
freshness, while the continuous sound of wind and water went from her
consciousness and came again with the ebb and flow of her thoughts.
But the strength and swirl of the water, its tireless force, its
incessant voices choiring on a chorus of numberless notes, invited
her, fascinated her, filled her with longing--longing to trust herself
to the waves, to lie still and let them rock her, to be borne out by
them a little way and brought back again, passive yet in ecstatic
enjoyment of the dreamy motion. The longing became an impulse. She put
her hand to her throat to undo her dress--but she did not undo it--she
never knew why. Had she yielded to the attraction, she must have been
drowned, for she could swim but little, and the water was deeper than
she knew, and the current strong; and she might have yielded just as
she resisted, for no reason that rendered itself into intelligible
thought.

She turned from the scene of her strange impulse, and began to wander
back over the rocks, suffering the while from that dull drop of the
spirit which sets in at the reaction after moments of special
intensity; and in this mood she came upon "the doctor," also climbing
the rocks.

"Now, it is a singular coincidence that I should meet you here again,"
he said.

Beth smiled. "I am afraid those nice boots of yours will suffer on
these sharp rocks," she remarked by way of saying something. "We
natives keep our old ones for the purpose."

"Ah," he said, "I don't keep old ones for any purpose. I have an
objection to everything old, old people included."

Beth had a book under her arm, and he coolly took it from her as he
spoke, and read the title: "Dryden's Poetical Works." "Ah! So you
carry the means of improving your mind at odd moments about with you.
Well, I'm not surprised, for I heard you were clever."

Beth smiled, more pleased than if he had called her beautiful; but she
wondered if Dryden could properly be called improving.

"It is absurd to keep a girl at school who has got as far as this kind
of thing," he added, tapping the old brown book; "but it seems to me
they don't understand you much at home, little lady."

"What makes you think so?" Beth asked shrewdly.

"Oh," he answered, somewhat disconcerted, "I judge from--from things I
hear and see."

This implied sympathy, and again Beth was