Anna Chester's sojourn at Coastdown was passing swiftly, and she seemed as in a very Elysium. The days of toil, of servitude, of incessant care for others were over, temporarily at any rate, and she enjoyed comfort and rest. The hospitable, good-hearted sailor-captain, with his tales of the sea-serpent, the mermaid he had seen, and other marvels; the meek, gentle, ever-thoughtful Mrs. Copp, who caused Anna to address her as "aunt," and behaved more kindly to her than any aunt did yet; the most charming visits day by day to the Red Court Farm, and the constant society of Isaac Thornycroft. Ah, there it lay--the strange fascination that all things were beginning to possess around her--in the companionship of _him_. To say that Isaac Thornycroft, hitherto so mockingly heart-whole, had fallen in love with Anna the first evening he saw her at Miss Jupp's, would be going too far, but he was certainly three-parts in love before they reached Coastdown the following day. To watch her gentle face became like the sweetest music to Isaac Thornycroft. To see her ever-wakeful attentions to her entertainers, her gratitude for their kindness, her prompt help of Sarah when extra work was to be done, her loving care for the friendless and poor, was something new to Isaac, altogether out of his experience. Come weal, come woe, he resolved that this girl should be his wife. People, in their thoughtless gossip, had been wont to predict a high-born and wealthy bride for the attractive second son of Justice Thornycroft; this humble orphan, the poor daughter of the many years poor and humble curate, was the one he fixed upon, with all the world before him to choose from. How Fate changes plans! "L'homme propose, mais Dieu dispose," was one of the most solemn truisms ever penned. Long ere the six weeks of holidays had passed, Isaac Thornycroft and Anna Chester had become all in all to each other: and he, a man accustomed to act upon impulse, spoke out. It was during an evening walk to the Red Court Farm. Anna was going to tea there; Isaac met her on the heath--no unusual thing--and turned to walk by her side. Both were silent after the first greeting: true love is rarely eloquent. With her soft cheeks blushing, her pale eyelids drooping, her heart wildly beating, Anna sought--at first in vain--to find some topic of conversation, and chose but a lame one. "Has Mary Anne finished her screen?" Isaac smiled. "As if I knew!" "She has the other one to do; and we shall be going back in a week." "Not in a week!" "The holidays will be up a week to-morrow." A vista of the miserable time after her departure, when all things would be dark and dreary, wanting her who had come to make his heart's sunshine, cast its foreshadowing across the brain of Isaac. He turned to her in his impulse, speaking passionately. "Anna, I cannot lose you. Rather than that, I must--I must--" "Must what?" she asked, innocently.