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Their Pilgrimage by Charles Dudley Warner
page 79 of 270 (29%)
high-breeding, refined in outline, color, everything softened into
loveliness, and yet touched with the wild quality of picturesqueness."

"It's just a dream at this moment," murmured Irene. They were standing
on a promontory of rock. "See those figures of people there through the
mist--silhouettes only. And look at that vessel--there--no--it has
gone."

As she was speaking, a sail-vessel began to loom up large in the
mysterious haze. But was it not the ghost of a ship? For an instant it
was coming, coming; it was distinct; and when it was plainly in sight it
faded away, like a dissolving view, and was gone. The appearance was
unreal. What made it more spectral was the bell on the reefs, swinging
in its triangle, always sounding, and the momentary scream of the
fog-whistle. It was like an enchanted coast. Regaining the carriage,
they drove out to the end, Agassiz's Point, where, when the mist lifted,
they saw the sea all round dotted with sails, the irregular coasts and
islands with headlands and lighthouses, all the picture still, land and
water in a summer swoon.

Late that afternoon all the party were out upon the cliff path in front
of the cottages. There is no more lovely sea stroll in the world, the
way winding over the cliff edge by the turquoise sea, where the turf,
close cut and green as Erin, set with flower beds and dotted with noble
trees, slopes down, a broad pleasure park, from the stately and
picturesque villas. But it was a social mistake to go there on Sunday.
Perhaps it is not the height of good form to walk there any day, but Mr.
King did not know that the fashion had changed, and that on Sunday this
lovely promenade belongs to the butlers and the upper maids, especially
to the butlers, who make it resplendent on Sunday afternoons when the
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