Beneath Fire Beacon lay the clustered dwellings of East Cornworthy, and beyond them, deep in the heart of the land, shone Dart where there bent away Bow Creek above Stoke Gabriel. The river wound argent through a dimple of the bending hills, while easterly, by broad passages of woodland and fallow, opened the ways to the sea. Tor Bay stretched there with white Torquay glittering pearly under her triple hills; and far beyond them, touched through the haze by a falling sunshaft, glimmered the headlands eastward, cliff beyond cliff, where the red sandstone of Devon gave to the golden oolites of Dorset. Then ranged the sea-line and rolled wide waters soaked with light, whereon the clouds not only flung down their shadows, but poured their reflections also, so that the sea was radiant as the land. Fire Beacon bore hay, and as the wind rippled the distant waters, so here, through ripening grass, over sparkling white daisies and russet sorrel, it ran and swept and sent a lustre, that danced upon the hill and stroked the herbage with fitful waves of light. A cuckoo called from an elm top and overhead wheeled the gulls to link earth and sea together. Hither climbed a party of four holiday makers, of whom two were middle-aged and two were young. The more youthful pair walked some hundred yards ahead and bore between them a hamper; their elders breasted the great hill more leisurely and stopped sometimes upon the way. Once, where a grassy dip in the hedge bank invited them to do so, they sat down to rest for a while. Ned and Medora reached the crown of Fire Beacon and sought a place for their picnic under the nearest hedge. They found it presently, but waited until Lydia and Philander should arrive and approve. Perfect understanding appeared to obtain between the husband and wife. Medora was attired in a pre-Kellock gown, which Mr. Dingle had always admired. Indeed she had given the garments that came from London to Daisy Finch. She had been highly ingenious in returning to the old régime at every minute particular, and in banishing to the void any evidence of the inter-regnum. She came back to Ned sufficiently contrite and sufficiently grateful and thankful. Her tact had been sharpened by tribulation, and remembering very well what was good to her husband, she wasted not much time on tears of repentance or promises of future well doing. She let her luck take the form of joyousness—which suited Dingle best. Her gratitude assumed the most agreeable shape from his point of view, for she exhibited such delight in her home and such radiant happiness in his company that he found himself content. Nor, for once, was there any simulation on Medora’s part. She felt the satisfaction she expressed. She appreciated the extent of her remarkable good fortune and desired nothing more than a return to the life she had under-valued. They were for the moment not talking of themselves, but Medora’s mother.