For all the love in those deep eyes,
A gladness ever new."
--Mrs. Hemans.


It is late in the afternoon of a delicious October day; the woods back of
the two cottages where the Dinsmores, Travillas and Raymonds have spent
the last three or four months are gorgeous with scarlet, crimson and gold;
the air from the sea is more delightful than ever, but the summer visitors
to the neighboring cottages and hotels have fled, and the beach is almost
deserted, as Edward and his child-wife wander slowly along it, hand in
hand, their attention divided between the splendors of a magnificent
sunset and the changing beauty of the sea; yonder away in the distance it
is pale gray; near at hand delicate green slowly changing to pink, each
wave crested with snowy foam, and anon they all turn to burnished gold.

"Oh, how very beautiful!" cries Zoe, in an ecstasy of delight. "Edward,
did you ever see anything finer?"

"Never! Let us go down this flight of steps and seat ourselves on the next
to the lowest. We will then be quite near the waves and yet out of danger
of being wet by them."

He led her down as he spoke, seated her comfortably and himself by her
side with his arm around her.

"I've grown very fond of the sea," she remarked. "I shall be sorry to
leave it. Will not you?"

"Yes and no," he answered, doubtfully. "I, too, am fond of old ocean, but