away.

But there before them, a mile and a half round the point of Stack, lay
the Beaches. On either side of the smooth sweep of the sands rose mighty
cliffs, black as the eye of the midnight and scarred with clefts like
battered fortresses. Then at the Beaches themselves, the cliff wall fell
back a hundred yards and left room for the daintiest edging of white
sand, shining like coral, crumbled down from the pure granite--which at
this point had not been overflowed like the rest of the island of
Suliscanna by the black lava.

Such a place for play there was not anywhere--neither on Suliscanna nor
on any other of the outer Atlantic isles. Low down, by the surf's edge,
the wet sands of the Glistering Beaches were delicious for the bare feet
to run and be brave and cool upon. The sickle sweep of the bay cut off
the Western rollers, and it was almost always calm in there. Only the
sea-birds clashed and clanged overhead, and made the eye dizzy to watch
their twinkling gyrations.

Then on the greensward there was the smoothest turf, a band of it
only--not coarse grass with stalks far apart, as it is on most
sea-beaches; but smooth and short as though it had been cropped by a
thousand woolly generations. "Such a place!" they both cried. And Anna,
who had never been here before, clapped her hands in delight.

"This is like heaven!" she sighed, as the prow of the boat grated
refreshingly on the sand, and Simeon sprang over with a splash, standing
to his mid-thigh in the salt water to pull the boat ashore.

Then Simeon and Anna ran races on the smooth turf. They examined