It would be too adventurous an incident to introduce if this tale were an invention instead of a narrative of facts, that Mr. Grey was ordered by his physician to a part of the coast very near to that where Mrs. Fitzpatrick's cottage was situated. Not a mile of rough hilly ground divided their dwellings from each other. This choice of a _locale_ was very easily accounted for. Mr. Warde was acquainted with Mr. Fletcher, the clergyman of the parish, and wrote to beg him to select a house for his friend. Mr. Fletcher did his best, but houses were not plentiful in that district. It was a pretty cottage, but really deserving of no other name. Mr. Grey did not enjoy it at all; he missed the luxuries of his own house. The casements did not shut, the chimnies smoked. There was no piano for Margaret, and Land's room was so small as to be a daily source of disquiet to his master. He was more annoyed for others than for himself. Little did Margaret think when she went down to the sea-side every morning, and sat patiently by her uncle's chair with her book and her work, that the person who most occupied her mind, was within so short a distance, engaged in the same sort of pursuit, in watching over the declining health of a friend. But her uncle grew weaker and more restless; he determined to return to Ashdale; and having once fixed the day, he seemed more comfortable in his mind. "Do you like the idea of it, my child?" said he to Margaret, "shall you not be glad to get back to Ashdale?" "Very glad, Sir," returned Margaret. "It must be dull, indeed, for you," said Mr. Grey in a pitying tone, "not a single soul here that we know. We might, to be sure, know the clergyman; but he gets a holiday exactly at the wrong time, and the man who does his duty for him does not live in the place. Not a shop to be seen, nor anything for the child to read but the paper; and that she does not care about, poor little thing." "Oh, uncle! if you were well I should not find it dull," said Margaret, "I should enjoy the sea and the beautiful rocks above everything. But when there is anything the matter, one always feels safer at home." Mr. Grey smiled, and said something as he went away about wishing to see Casement again, in which desire Margaret could not join.