Roland's holiday was to consist of a day or two, or three at the most--yet lo! the evening and the morning were the twenty-first day. There was always something new to be seen, something more to be sketched, some fresh excuse for staying in a house where this young man lived from the first as if he had been there all his life and belonged to the family. Scilly has to be seen in cloud as well as in sunshine: in wind and rain as well as in fair weather: one island had been accidentally overlooked; another must be re-visited. So the days went on, each one like the days before it, but with a difference. The weather was for the most part fine, so that they could at least sail about the islands of the Road. Every morning the young man got up at six and, after a bathe from Shark Point, walked all round Samson and refreshed his soul by gazing upon the Outer Islands. Breakfast over, he took a pipe in the farmyard with Justinian and Peter, who continually talked of shipwrecks and of things washed ashore. During this interval Armorel made the puddings and the cakes. When she had accomplished this delicate and responsible duty, she came out, prepared for the day. They took their dinner-basket with them, and sallied forth: in the afternoon they returned: in the evening, at seven o'clock, the table was pushed back: the old serving people came in; the fire was stirred into animation; Armorel played the old-fashioned tunes; and the ancient lady rallied, and sat up, and talked, her mind in the past. All the days alike, yet each one differing from its neighbours. There is no monotony, though place and people remain exactly the same, when there is the semblance of variety. For, besides the discovery of so many curious and interesting islands, this fortunate young man, as we have seen, discovered that his daily companion, though so young--'only a child'--was a girl of wonderful quickness and ready sympathy. A young artist wants sympathy--it is necessary for his growth: sympathy, interest, and flattery are necessary for the artistic temperament. All these Armorel offered him in large measure, running over. She kept alive in him that faith in his own star which every artist, as well as every general, must possess. Great is the encouragement of such sympathy to the young man of ambitions. This consideration is, indeed, the principal excuse for early marriages. Three weeks of talk with such a girl--no one else to consider or to interrupt--no permission to be sought--surely these things made up a holiday which quite beat the record! Three whole weeks! Such a holiday should form the foundation of a life-long friendship! Could either of them ever forget such a holiday?