When they had passed the martello tower some way, and as the day was beginning to decline, he pointed out a road which led between two of the cliffs to the left, saying, "Now, which way shall we go? That takes us back to the Park, and is about two miles shorter than the way we came; but I do not know that it is so pleasant." "Oh, the longest way, by all means, Mr. Tyrrell," replied Lucy Effingham, looking up in his face with a bright smile. "Such a pleasant ride as this can hardly be too long." Often have we harangued upon the important results which spring from the smallest trifles. Those few words decided the fate of Charles Tyrrell and Lucy Effingham for ever. It was not that the bright smile with which they were accompanied lighted up in Charles Tyrrell's bosom any feelings which were not there before; for he fully believed afterward, as he had previously thought, that the first affections of her heart were given to another; but it was, that the very moment in which they stood there to decide on the one road or the other, was the very critical moment of their fate; that every after-moment through all time and eternity was affected by it; and that the consequences of Lucy's decision, by the concatenation of a thousand fine, small incidents, brought events to pass that no one then did calculate or ever could have calculated. This is, in fact, the place where our story should have begun; but, notwithstanding the maxim of the poet of old Rome, we cannot help thinking that it is better to begin a little too soon than a little too late, in histories as in other things. Charles Tyrrell instantly turned his horse's head on the road for which Lucy had decided; but they rode back more slowly than they had come; for it seemed as if the two younger of the party, at all events, wished to linger on as long as possible by the side of that calm grand sea. More than once they pulled in the rein and stood to gaze, though the ocean presented little for their contemplation beyond the sublime of its own immensity; except, indeed, where a distant sail skimmed along the waters, or a white bird dipped its long pinions in the dark bosom of the deep.