The girl felt that she had left under a cloud, which a slight attack of
what the doctor had diagnosed as brain fever had not served to line
with silver.

He had insisted upon complete change and rest, and had called twice a
day when Leonie was really ill, and four times when she was
convalescent; so upon fair Devon had they decided, Leonie cajoling and
smiling until she had obtained a year's lease, at an absurdly low rent,
of the little cottage on the left of Lee harbour as you face the sea.

It is a place of charm if you are willing to do most of the work
yourself with the aid of a daily help.

It is certainly rather like a band-box with the lid on, and the ocean
at high tide is only prevented by the harbour wall from invading your
front garden, which is the size of a handkerchief.

But if you sit at the window you can feel the spray on your face, and
if you lie a-bed the tang of the air sweeping across the Atlantic will
get you out at the double; and the smell of the pines, and the hum of
the bees in summer, and the rush of the storm, and the crash of the
waves in winter, are of God's own fashioning.

What with shopping expeditions to that crime in brick and mortar called
Ilfracombe, visits here and visits there, croquet, bridge, and picnics,
the summer and early autumn months had not dragged unduly for Susan
Hetth.

But when the last visitor had gone, and the first real storm had broken
a window, then she had sunk like a lump of lead in a bucket of cold