To Queenie the whole scene was strangely picturesque--the blue sky; the open sheds full of noisy workers; the whirr of machinery; the great blocks of rough-hewn granite, grey, fresh from the quarries; then the smooth polished slabs, shining with soft-mingled tints. The process, the amount of hard, patient labour, astonished the girl. She could have stood for a long; time watching; the masons chiselling; and fine-boring the hard stone. Piles of grey and pink granite lay in the centre, carved and shaped into headstones. Mr. Logan inspected them thoughtfully. "White marble is more beautiful, especially for the graves of women and children," she heard him say to Captain Fawcett; "but then granite is more impervious to weather. In cemeteries, for instance, where there are trees the constant dropping and damp stains and defaces the beauty of the marble; but nothing spoils the granite." "Nothing, to my mind, beats Warstdale granite," replied the Captain meditatively. "Marble is too white and chilly for our English cemeteries; we want Italian sun to light it up. Look at these warm tints; here is coloring, durability, everything we want. Can anything be finer than this polish?" Queenie was listening to them with interest when Garth came up and claimed her attention. "While they are getting the quarry engine ready I want to show you the workmen's cottages, and the room where Langley and I have our classes," said the young man a little condescendingly. He looked grey-eyed, eager, rather flushed with playing the part of host and cicerone to so many ladies. His white teeth gleamed with a bright happy smile under his dark moustache: but for all that his tone had a slight accent of condescension that made Queenie smile as she followed him. "You are master here--Garth Clayton of Warstdale--and I am a poor little school-teacher, a nobody," thought the girl, with just a faint touch of rebellion, growing hot all at once.