Miss Terry’s realistic description of her bearer’s appearance, which was, to say the least of it, limp and moist, was no exaggeration.  But then she herself, as Arthur well remembered, was no feather-weight, especially when, as in the present case, she had to be carted up the side of a nearly perpendicular hill some miles long, a fact very well exemplified by the condition of the bearer.

“My dear Agatha,” replied Mildred, laughing, “what is to be done?  Of course the man is hot, you are not a feather-weight; but what is to be done?”

“I don’t know, but I won’t go on with him, it’s simply disgusting; he might let himself out as a watering-cart.”

“But we can’t get another here.”

“Then he must cool himself, the others might come and fan him.  I won’t go on till he is cool, and that’s flat.”

“He will take hours to cool, and meanwhile we are broiling on this hot road.  You really must come on, Agatha.”

“I have it,” said Arthur.  “Miss Terry must turn herself round with her head towards the back of the hammock, and then she won’t see him.”

To this arrangement the aggrieved lady was after some difficulty persuaded to accede, and the procession started again.

Their destination reached, they picnicked as they had arranged, and then separated, the bride and bridegroom strolling off in one direction, and Mildred and Arthur in another, whilst Miss Terry mounted guard over the plates and dishes.

Presently Arthur and Mildred came to a little English-looking grove of pine and oak, that extended down a gentle slope and was bordered by a steep bank, at the foot of which great ferns and beautiful Madeira flowers twined themselves into a shelter from the heat.  Here they sat down and gazed at the splendid and many-tinted view set in its background of emerald ocean.

“What a view it is,” said Arthur.  “Look, Mildred, how dark the clumps of sugar-cane look against the green of the vines, and how pretty the red roofs of the town are peeping out of the groves of fruit-trees.  Do you see the great shadow thrown upon the sea by that cliff? how deep and cool the water looks within it, and how it sparkles where the sun strikes.”

“Yes, it is beautiful, and the pines smell sweet.”

“I wish Angela could see it,” he said, half to himself.  Mildred, who was lying back lazily among the ferns, her hat off, her eyes closed, so that the long dark lashes lay upon her cheek, and her head resting on her arm, suddenly started up.

“What is the matter?”

“Nothing, you woke me from a sort of dream, that’s all.”

“This spring I remember going with her to look at a view near the Abbey House, and saying—­what I often think when I look at anything beautiful and full of life—­that it depressed one to know that all this was so much food for death, and its beauty a thing that to-day is and to-morrow is not.”

“And what did she say?”