The girl found Beckleigh to be a little fairy bay on the south coast of Devonshire, shut out from the world by high moorlands, over which tourists rarely came. Where the rolling downs dipped to the sea, there was a secluded nook--a dimple on the face of natural beauty, and here a quaint, rambling old house of mellowed grey stone nestled close to a mighty cliff of red sandstone. It was a quarter of a mile from the mansion to the yellow sands of the tiny beach, and the fertile acres were covered with many trees. The wood was partly wild and partly artificial, and was threaded by dozens of paths, narrow and broad. These led unexpectedly to clearings, rainbow-hued with flowers, or to sylvan glades fit for the revels of Titania and her elves. Although it was close upon Christmas, yet myriad flowers were in bloom, and stately palms, growing here and there, gave a suggestion of tropical vegetation to the miniature forest. The climate of this particular beauty-spot was truly wonderful, with almost constant warmth and sunshine. And here again it resembled Avilion, lacking snow and hail and rain, and the voice of wild, destructive winds. The ruddy cliff gathered the heat of many suns and poured it forth when the skies were clouded, while the high moors screened this favoured paradise from the cutting north winds. "It is truly lovely," said Patricia, as she strolled with Mara through these gardens of Alcinous, day after day, and found the same bland conditions prevailing. "I would not have believed that there was such a lovely spot in this cold, grey England." "Oh, we have bad weather sometimes," said Mara, in her soft, low voice; "the skies grow cloudy and the sea grows very rough. It rains, too, heavily at times, but I don't think we have ever had snow or hail. The cliff keeps us warm." The two girls turned on the edge of the lawn, where the woods began, and looked upward at the mighty cliff, which towered majestically above them like the Tower of Babel. To Mara, who had dwelt beneath it for so long, it looked like a kindly guardian giant, who gave shelter and warmth to the favoured acres at its base; but Patricia thought it looked frowning and menacing. "It looks as though one day it would fall and crush the house," she said with a shiver, for the hostility of the great mass of rock seemed certain. Mara smiled in her slow, sad way. "It has stood there without falling since the world began, I suppose," she said wisely, "so I don't see why it should fall, now you have come." "I suppose not. Yet," Patricia shivered again, "it makes me feel uncomfortable. Do you remember in 'Childe Roland,' how the hills, like giants at hunting, lay watching the game at bay. It looks to me like that."