Stella sighed, but Jasper broke in cheerfully-- "Better than when he first came," he said. "I noticed the difference directly I saw him. He will pick up his strength famously, you will see." Stella sighed again. "You must make sketches of this coast," said Jasper, as if anxious to get away from the subject. "It is particularly picturesque, especially about the cliffs. There is one view in particular which you should not fail to take; you get it from the top of the cliff there." "Rather a dangerous perch," said Mr. Etheridge, shading his eyes and looking up. "Yes, it is," assented Jasper. "I have been trying to impress the fact upon Stella. It is her favorite haunt, she tells me, and I am always in fear and trembling when I see her mounting up to it." The old man smiled. "You will soon have the right to protect her," he said, glancing at the church. "Have you made all the arrangements?" Jasper's face flushed as he answered, but Stella's remained pale and set. "Yes, everything is ready. The clergyman is a charming old gentleman, and the church is a picture inside. I tell Stella that one could not have chosen a more picturesque spot." And he glanced toward her with the watchful smile. Stella turned her face away. "It is very pretty," she said, simply. "Shall we go in now? Frank will be expecting us." "You must know," said Jasper, "that we are leading the most rustic of lives--dinner in the middle of the day, tea at five o'clock." "I see," said Mr. Etheridge. "Quite a foretaste of Arcadia! But, after all," he added, perhaps remembering the long journey which he had been compelled to take, and which he disliked, "I can't see why you should not have been married at Wyndward." Jasper smiled. "And risk the chance of Lord Leycester turning up at the last moment and making a scene," he might have answered, if he had replied candidly; but instead, he said, lightly: "Oh, that would have been too commonplace for such a romantic man as your humble servant, sir." Mr. Etheridge eyed him in his usual grave, abstracted way. "You are the last person I should have accused of a love of the romantic," he said. "Then there was Frank," added Jasper, in a lower voice, but not too low to reach Stella, for whom the addition was intended; "he wanted a change, and he would not have come without Stella." They entered the cottage, in the tiny sitting-room of which Mrs. Penfold had already set the tea. Frank was lying on a sofa whose metallic hardness had been mitigated by cushions and pillows; and certainly if he was pulling up his strength, as Jasper asserted, it was at a very slow rate.