They went down through the garden, fresh and dewy still from the short, cool night, towards the sea. The path to the village lies along a low sea-wall, just high enough and strong enough to keep the tide from the lawns. But the tide was beginning to run out at that hour, and was singing and rocking itself away from the shore, leaving the big loose stones and the chocolate-coloured rocks all wet and shining in the morning sun. The breeze was springing up in the offing and would reach the land before long, kissing each island as it passed softly by, and gently breaking with dark blue the smoothly undulating water. The sun was almost behind the pair as they walked along the sands, and shone full upon the harbour as it came into view, lighting up the deep green of the islands between which passes the channel, and bringing up the warm brown of the soil through thick weaving spruces. The graceful yachts caught the sunshine, too, their hulls gleaming darkly, or dazzlingly white, their slender masts pencilled in light, against the trees, and standing out like threaded needles when they showed against the pale, clear sky. In the bright northern air, the artist would have complained that there was no atmosphere--no 'depth,' nor 'distance,' but only the distinct farness of the objects a long way off--nothing at all like 'atmospheric perspective.' "Isn't it a glorious day!" exclaimed Fanny, looking seaward at a white-sailed fishing-schooner, which scarcely moved in the morning air. "It's a little bit too swept and garnished," answered Lawrence. "That is--for a picture, you know. It's better to feel than to look at, if you understand what I mean. It feels so northern, that when you look at it, it seems bare and unfinished without a little snow." "But you like it, don't you?" asked the young girl, in prompt protest. "Of course I do. What a question! I thought I'd been showing how much I liked it, ever since I got here." "I'm not sure that you show what you like and don't like," said Fanny, in a tone of reflexion. "Perhaps it's better not to." "You don't, at all events. At least--aren't you rather an inscrutable person? Of course I don't know," he added rather foolishly, pulling his woollen cap over his eyes and glancing at her sideways. "Inscrutable! What a big word! 'The inscrutable ways of Providence'--that's what they always say, don't they? Still--if you mean that I don't 'tell,' you're quite right. I don't--when I can keep my countenance. Do you? It's always far better not to tell. Besides, if you commit yourself to an opinion, you're committing yourself to gaol." "What a way of putting it! But it's really true. I should so much like to ask you a question about one of your opinions." "Why don't you?" asked Fanny, turning her eyes to his. "Oh--lots of reasons: I'm afraid, in the first place; and then, I'm not sure you have one, and then--" "Say it all--I hate people who hesitate!"