Lady Car got quickly well amid the sea breezes. They got her a house on the cliff, where from her sofa she could look out upon the sea, and all the lights and shades on the Forfar coast, and the shadows of the far distant ships like specks on the horizon, like hopes (she thought), always appearing afar, passing away, never near enough to be possible. She floated away from all acute pain as she lay recovering, and recovered, too, her beloved gift of verse, and made a very charming, but sad, little poem called ‘Sails on the Horizon,’ expressing this idea. Lady Car thought to herself, as she lay there, that her hopes had all been like that, far away, just within sight, passing without an approach, without a possibility of coming near. None of these ships ever changed their course or drew near St. Andrews Bay: yet the white distant sail would hang upon the horizon line as if it might turn its helm at any moment and come. And hope had come only so to Carry--never to stay, only in the distance. In the quiet of convalescence and of that profound immeasurable despair which took the form of perfect peace, that renunciation of all that she had wished for on earth, it was a pleasure for her to put that conceit into words. It was only a conceit, she was aware. Presently she became able to go out, to be drawn in a chair along the sands, or away in the other direction to the line of the eastern coast, with all its curious rocks and coves. About ten days after her arrival in St. Andrews Lady Car made one of those expeditions accompanied by Beaufort and Janet. They took her in her little vehicle as far as it would go, and then she walked a little down to the shore, to a spot which she recollected in her youth, where a grassy bank of the close short seaside grass bordered a ridge of broken rocks higher than the level of the beach. Over this line of rock there was a wonderful view of the little town isolated upon its headland, with the fine cluster of the ruined cathedral, the high square tower of St. Rule, the grey heap of the destroyed castle, and the little port below, set in the shining sea; and great breadths of the blue firmament banded with lines of pearly cloud. Here Carry sat down to rest while her companions went further along the coast to the curious little bay with its bristling rocks, where stands the famous Spindle, left among the seapools by some gigantic Norma of the North. The wide air, the great sky, the sense of space and freshness, and separation from all intrusive things; and, on the other hand, the picture made by that cluster of human habitations and ancient work of man defaced and worn, standing in the rays of the afternoon sun, which streamed over it from the west, made a perfect combination. The ridge of red rocks and piled stones which cut off all vulgarities of the foreground and relieved it in warm colour against the grey headland and the wonderful blue sea, shut in Lady Car’s retreat,