glorified into a fairy palace of romance built by immortal things in a
night. Seen thus, it even challenged the beholder's admiration, of which he
was at all times sparing. Until that hour, he had found nothing but
laughter for this same mount, likening the spectacle of it, with its castle
and cottages, now to a senile monarch with moth-eaten ermine about his toes
and a lop-sided crown on his head, now to a monstrous sea-snail creeping
shoreward.

Barron, having walked down the hill to Mouse-hole, breasted slowly the
steep acclivity which leads therefrom toward the west. Presently he turned,
where a plateau of grass sloped above the cliffs into a little theater of
banks ablaze with gorse. And here his thoughts and the image they were
concerned with perished before reality. Framed in a halo of golden furze,
her hands making a little penthouse above her brow, and in her blue eyes
the mingled hue of sea and sky, stood a girl looking out at the horizon.
The bud of a wondrous fair woman she was, and Barron saw her slim yet
vigorous figure accentuated under its drab-brown draperies by a kindly
breeze. He noted the sweet, childish freshness of her face, her plump arms
filling the sleeves of rusty black, and her feet in shoes too big for them.
Her hair was hidden under a linen sun-bonnet, but one lock had escaped, and
he noted that it was the color of wheat ripe for the reaping. He regretted
it had not been darker, but observed that it chimed well enough with the
flaming flowers behind it. And then he frankly praised Nature in his heart
for sending her servant such a splendid harmony in gold and brown. There
stood his picture in front of him. He gazed a brief second only, and then
his quick mind worked to find what human interest had brought Joan Tregenza
to this place and turned her eyes to the sea. It might be that herein
existed the possibility of the introduction he desired. He felt that
victory probably depended on the events of the next two or three minutes.
He owed a supreme effort of skill and tact to Fate, which had thus