the distant alleys. There are pleasant walks, which people seldom take,
in many directions, and there are drives and bridle-paths all through the
dense, sad, Northern woods which still savagely clothe the greater part
of the island to its further shores, where there are shelves and plateaus
of rock incomparable for picnicking.

One need ask nothing better, in fact, than to stroll down the sylvan road
that leads to the Owen, past the little fishing-village with its sheds
for curing herring; and the pale blue smoke and appetising savour
escaping from them; and past the little chapel with which the old Admiral
attested his love of the Established rite. On this road you may sometimes
meet a little English bishop from the Provinces, in his apron and
knee-breeches; and there is a certain bridge over a narrow estuary, where
in the shallow land-locked pools of the deeply ebbing tide you may throw
stones at sculpin, and witness the admirable indifference of those fish
to human cruelty and folly. In the middle distance you will see a group
of herring weirs, which with their coronals of tufted saplings form the
very most picturesque aspect of any fishing industry. You may, now and
then find an artist at this point, who, crouched over his easel, or hers,
seems to agree with you about the village and the weirs.

But Alice Pasmer cared little more for such things than her mother did,
and Mrs. Pasmer regarded Nature in all her aspects simply as an adjunct
of society, or an occasional feature of the entourage. The girl had no
such worldly feeling about it, but she found slight sympathy in the moods
of earth and sky with her peculiar temperament. This temperament, whose
recondite origin had almost wholly broken up Mrs. Pasmer's faith in
heredity, was like other temperaments, not always in evidence, and Alice
was variously regarded as cold, of shy, or proud, or insipid, by the
various other temperaments brought in contact with her own. She was apt