earnestly, "I should have been the niece of Cornelius, should I not, Kate?" "You would have been my child." "And his niece too, Kate." "Do not be always thinking of Cornelius, Daisy." "Oh! Kate, Uncle Cornelius has such a pleasant sound!" She caressed me sadly; then we rose, went over the house together, and finally surveyed the garden. All trace of man's art had vanished from the spot, on which nature had bestowed a beauty and wild grace its culture had never known. The hedge of gorse now enclosed but a green wilderness of high waving grass, weeds, and wild flowers. Other flowers there were none, and the tender shrubs uncared for, had perished, blighted by the keen sea-breeze; the pine trees alone still stood and looked the same as I had left them, over their changed domain. For awhile we looked down from the stone steps where Cornelius had found me lying so desolate, then Kate descended, and said to me-- "Daisy, we will not change much. We will spoil as little as we can the freshness of the place. I like that green grass, those weeds that hide the brown earth so well, those long trailing creepers and wild flowers. We will just clear the path, add a few of the plants we like, give the whole a look of home, and leave what is beautiful as we found it." "Kate," I exclaimed, hastening down to the pine-trees, "here is the sea. You have not yet had a good view of it, do come and look. Do you remember how I got up on the table in the studio to get a sight of it? Oh! is it not a grand thing?" She smiled at my enthusiasm, and sat down on the wooden bench, which still stood in its old place. My heart swelled as I remembered that there I had received my father's embrace, but I would not sadden her by recalling it; I shaded my eyes with my hand to hide my tears, and whilst they flowed I looked long and silently on that eternal ocean on which, for nearly five years, I had not gazed. It still rolled its heavy waters with majestic calmness; they now looked dark as molten lead, a white line of surf marking where they broke on the beach. The day had been grey and cloudy, and the sun was setting veiled and without splendour. For awhile the heavy clouds resting on the low, sea-bound horizon, still wore a reddish tint, like the smouldering ashes of a spent fire. Like them too they suddenly grew pale. Light mists, advancing from the sea, shrouded the coast below, distinctness faded away from every object, and the penetrating chillness of evening began to spread upon the air. Kate rose; we went in; as we ascended the steps she turned hack, she looked on the wild garden, on the pine-trees whose dark and spreading branches now moved to the evening breeze with a low rustling sound, at that broad sky crossed by swift clouds and hanging over the sea, and with a sigh she said-- "It was just like him, to come and live here,--he always liked wild places."