orchards, of the possibilities of a good fishing year, and of the general beauty of the scenery around Weircombe. Then, of course, there was the book which Angus was writing--a book now nearing completion. It was a very useful book, because it gave them a constant and safe topic of conversation. Many chapters were read and re-read--many passages written and re-written for Mary's hearing and criticism,--and it may at once be said that what had at first been merely clever, brilliant, and intellectual writing, was now becoming not so much a book as an artistic creation, through which the blood and colour of human life pulsed and flowed, giving it force and vitality. Sometimes they persuaded Helmsley to accompany them on some of their shorter rambles,--but he was not strong enough to walk far, and he often left them half-way up the "coombe," returning to the cottage alone. Mary had frequently expressed a great wish to take him to a favourite haunt of hers, which she called the "Giant's Castle"--but he was unable to make the steep ascent--so on one fine afternoon she took Angus there instead. "The Giant's Castle" had no recognised name among the Weircombe villagers save this one which Mary had bestowed upon it, and which the children repeated after her so often that it seemed highly probable that the title would stick to it for ever. "Up Giant's Castle way" was quite a familiar direction to any one ascending the "coombe," or following the precipitous and narrow path which wound along the edge of the cliffs to certain pastures where shepherds as well as sheep were in daily danger of landslips, and which to the ordinary pedestrian were signalled by a warning board as "Dangerous." But "Giant's Castle" itself was merely the larger and loftier of the two towering rocks which guarded the sea-front of Weircombe village. A tortuous grassy path led up to its very pinnacle, and from here, there was an unbroken descent as straight and smooth as a well-built wall, of several hundred feet sheer down into the sea, which at this point swirled round the rocky base in dark, deep, blackish-green eddies, sprinkled with trailing sprays of brown and crimson weed. It was a wonderful sight to look down upon this heaving mass of water, if it could be done without the head swimming and the eyes growing blind with the light of the sky striking sharp against the restless heaving of the waves, and Mary was one of the few who could stand fearlessly on almost the very brink of the parapet of the "Giant's Castle," and watch the sweep of the gulls as they flew under and above her, uttering their brief plaintive cries of gladness or anger as the wild wind bore them to and fro. When Reay first saw her run eagerly to the very edge, and stand there, a light, bold, beautiful figure, with the wind fluttering her garments and blowing loose a long rippling tress of her amber-brown hair, he could not refrain from an involuntary cry of terror, and an