So she thawed a little, and did not leave all the civility to Miss Keith, but graciously responded to the stranger’s admiration of the views, the exquisite framings of the summer sea and sky made by tree, rock, and rising ground, and the walks so well laid out on the little headland, now on smooth turf, now bordering slopes wild with fern and mountain ash, now amid luxuriant exotic shrubs that attested the mildness of Avonmouth winters.

When they came near the front of the house, Rachel took man and dog in through the open window of her own sitting-room, and hastened to provide him with bandages and splints, leaving Bessie to reassure Mrs. Curtis that no human limbs were broken, and that no one was even wet to the skin; nay, Bessie had even the tact to spare Mrs. Curtis the romantic colouring that delighted herself.  Grace had followed Rachel to assist at the operation, and was equally delighted with its neatness and tenderness, as well as equally convinced of the necessity of asking the performer first to wash his hands and then to eat his breakfast, both which kind proposals he accepted with diffident gratitude, first casting a glance around the apartment, which, though he said nothing, conveyed that he was profoundly struck with the tokens of occupation that it contained.  The breakfast was, in the first place, a very hungry one; indeed, Bessie had been too ravenous to wait till the surgery was over, and was already arrived at her second egg when the others appeared, and the story had again to be told to the mother, and her warm thanks given.  Mrs. Curtis did not like strangers when they were only names, but let her be brought in contact, and her good nature made her friendly at once, above all in her own house.  The stranger was so grave and quiet too, not at all presuming, and making light of his services, but only afraid he had been trespassing on the Homestead grounds.  These incursions of the season visitors were so great a grievance at the Homestead that Mrs. Curtis highly approved his forbearance, whilst she was pleased with his tribute to her scenery, which he evidently admired with an artistic eye.  Love of sketching had brought him to Avonmouth, and before he took leave, Mrs. Curtis had accorded him that permission to draw in her little peninsula for which many a young lady below was sighing and murmuring.  He thanked her with a melancholy look, confessing that in his circumstances his pencil was his toy and his solace.

“Once again, that landscape painter!” exclaimed Bessie, with uplifted hands, as soon as both he and Mrs. Curtis were out of earshot, “an adventure at last.”

“Not at all,” said Rachel, gravely; “there was neither alarm nor danger.”

“Precisely; the romance minus the disagreeables.  Only the sea monster wanting.  Young Alcides, and rock—­you stood there for sacrifice, I was the weeping Dardanian dames.”

Even Grace could not help laughing at the mischief of the one, and the earnest seriousness of the other.