there, not even little Emmy and her convalescent companions, nothing but a boat or two on the shore, a fisher-boy or so, half in half out of the water. And the little waves leaped and laughed and gurgled, and the big ones rolled softly in with their long hus--sh on the warm sands. Scenery there was none to speak of--a blue sea, a blue sky, the one flecked with wavelets, the other with cloudlets; a brownish-yellow slope of sand, a grey-green shoulder of velvety mossy down, a few low fantastic rocks, a rude brown-red fishing coble; yet with what a sense of beauty and pleasantness those nothings filled the mind! mere air and sunshine and summer sounds, and simplest life--nothing more. Oswald sat and waited, not very patiently, behind the bit of rock. Sometimes he forgot himself for a moment, and mused almost like Agnes, but with thoughts more active. If he could but get her into one of those boats and take her out upon the blue silence of the sea, where no one could interfere with him, no one interrupt his love-tale, not even her own scruples! Now the decisive moment of his life (he said to himself) was at hand. Never again would he have such an opportunity--everything must be settled to-day. It was the last day of this sweet clandestine romance which pleased his fancy so much more than serious wooing. After this it would be necessary to descend to the precautions of ordinary life, to see her family, to ask the consent of her father and mother, to arrange horrible business, and fall into the groove like ordinary men. But to-day! was there not anything wild, adventurous, out of the usual jog-trot, that they could do to-day? Her dress was the chief thing that restrained Oswald. He could have carried off a girl in the habiliments of ordinary life, could have persuaded her into a boating expedition (he thought), in defiance of all the conventional rules of society; but a girl in a convent dress, a girl in a close cap and poke bonnet! She only looked the fairer for that rim of solid white which made the warm tints of her complexion tell so powerfully; but the cap was a visible sign of separation from the world which daunted the boldness of the youth. Nevertheless the laughing brightness of the water and the tempting nearness of the boat made Oswald restless. He called the owner to him, who was stolidly lounging about, from time to time looking at his property, and hired it, then sent for a little basket of provisions from the inn, enough for luncheon. Was it possible that he might be able to beguile her to go out with him? He went back to his rock, and sat, with his heart beating, to wait.