and the very young, had usually shared its comforts together; but at
the time of my story, there remained of the family only the widow of
the last proprietor, her son Andrew, and her daughter Christina.
Christina was twenty years old, and still unmarried,--a strange thing
in Pittendurie, where early marriages are the rule. Some said she was
vain of her beauty and could find no lad whom she thought good enough;
others thought she was a selfish, cold-hearted girl, feared for the
cares and the labours of a fisherman's wife.

On this July afternoon, the girl had been some hours mending the pile
of nets at her feet; but at length they were in perfect order, and she
threw her arms upward and outward to relieve their weariness, and then
went to the open door. The tide was coming in, but the children were
still paddling in the salt pools and on the cold bladder rack, and she
stepped forward to the edge of the cliff, and threw them some wild
geranium and ragwort. Then she stood motionless in the bright sunlight,
looking down the shingle towards the pier and the little tavern, from
which came, in drowsy tones, the rough monotonous songs which seamen
delight to sing--songs, full of the complaining of the sea, interpreted
by the hoarse, melancholy voices of sea faring men.

Standing thus in the clear light, her great beauty was not to be
denied. She was tall and not too slender; and at this moment, the set
of her head was like that of a thoroughbred horse, when it pricks its
ears to listen. She had soft brown eyes, with long lashes and heavy
eyebrows--eyes, reflecting the lances of light that darted in and out
of the shifting clouds--an open air complexion, dazzling, even teeth,
an abundance of dark, rippling hair, and a flush of ardent life opening
her wide nostrils, and stirring gently the exquisite mould of her
throat and bust. The moral impression she gave was that of a pure,