clerical friend by giving him an opportunity to read her a lecture on
the way home, if he found the courage to do so.

Mr. and Mrs. Marvyn and Candace wound their way soberly homeward; the
Doctor returned to his study for nightly devotions; and before long,
sleep settled down on the brown cottage.

"I'll tell you what, Cato," said Candace, before composing herself to
sleep, "I can't feel it in my bones dat dis yer weddin's gwine to come
off yit."


CHAPTER XXXI.

AN ADVENTURE.


A day or two after, Madame de Frontignac and Mary went out to gather
shells and seaweed on the beach. It was four o'clock; and the afternoon
sun was hanging in the sultry sky of July with a hot and vaporous
stillness. The whole air was full of blue haze, that softened the
outlines of objects without hiding them. The sea lay like so much
glass; every ship and boat was double; every line and rope and spar had
its counterpart; and it seemed hard to say which was the more real, the
under or the upper world.

Madame de Frontignac and Mary had brought a little basket with them,
which they were filling with shells and sea-mosses. The former was in
high spirits. She ran, and shouted, and exclaimed, and wondered at each
new marvel thrown out upon the shore, with the _abandon_ of a little