It was a strange, wild garden, with great palms growing in the beds, and the walls of the terraces, for it was all more or less terraced out of the face of the cliff, covered with curtains of creepers, most of them a mass of bloom. Roses in sprays as long as your arm drooped temptingly within reach, and the little heavy-scented gardenia filled the air with fragrance. Sheila ran from place to place, exclaiming and admiring, glancing with shy interest at other visitors strolling about, and making her companion laugh again and again by her enthusiasm. “Oof, a tennis-court!” she cried, darting suddenly through an opening. “Oh, did you ever see anything so lovely? It is like a Tadema picture!” It was rather, for the floor was of concrete, looking white in the fading light, and there were stone seats all round it for spectators, whiter still. All round a trellis had been placed, wired in against balls, and this trellis was just one sheet of glorious colour. Curtains of bougainvillia hung over at one place, at another heliotrope of roses made a perfect screen, intermingled with scarlet geranium, poinsettia, and plumbago. Through little gaps in this floral curtain, and through vistas of palm and cactus beyond, could be caught glimpses of the blue sea, and overhead the sky rose sapphire clear, with that peculiar purity and depth of colour which characterises those latitudes. “Oh, isn’t it lovely?” cried Sheila in ecstasy. “Awfully pretty,” replied her companion, “though the floor might be better for playing. There are some big cracks. Do you like tennis, Miss Cholmondeley?” “Oof, yes!” cried the girl eagerly; “but I have not had much practice this summer. Effie was ill, and I was not going to parties. Do you play well, Mr. Dumaresq?” “No, not well according to the modern standard; but perhaps you will condescend to play with me. But come along; I want to see what that little building is up there. In there is the bungalow, a sort of dependence of the hotel. The Reids offered it to us as an independent home of our own, but as Guy is rather lame and weak, and we should have to come up to the hotel for meals, we declined; there are too many steps. But it is a pretty place; such a sheer drop to the sea below. It must be like living in a ship’s cabin. Now I want to see how to get to that other building. I think there’s a sort of a path round here. I’ve a fancy it may be the billiard-room from my aunt’s description of the place.” A billiard-room it was—half of it, at least; the other half was quite empty save for a piano and some chairs round the walls. “It looks made for a dance!” cried Sheila, pirouetting round. “Are all hotels as perfectly delightful as this?” The sun had just dipped behind the hills, and the shadows were coming on apace. “I suppose it gets dark pretty soon here,” said Ronald. “Let us go back to the house now. We must finish the garden to-morrow. There is plenty more to see.”