It was thus that the holiday life went on. The young people were always consulting what to do, making up endless excursions and expeditions, Mrs. Sandford always explaining for them. What was the use of being at the seaside if they did not take full advantage of it? What was the use of coming to a new part of the country if they did not see everything? Sometimes she went with them, compelled by the addition of various strangers with whom the girls could not go without a chaperon; sometimes stayed at home with her husband, calculating where they would be by this time; whether they had found a pleasant spot for their luncheon; when they might be expected back. Meanwhile, Mr. Sandford took long solitary walks--very long, very solitary--along the endless line of the sands, within sight and sound of the sea. Little Mary and her next brother, the schoolboy, always started with him; but the fascination of the rocks and pools was too much for these little people, and the father, not ill-pleased, went on with a promise of picking them up again on his way back. He would walk on and on for the whole of the fresh shining morning, with the sea on one side and the green country on the other, and all the wonderful magical lights of the sky and water shining as if for him alone. They beguiled him out of himself with their miraculous play and shimmer and wealth of heavenly reflection; and sometimes he seemed to feel a higher sensation still--the feeling as of a silent great Companion who filled the heavenly space, yet moved with him, an all-embracing, all-responsive sympathy, till he thought of God coming down to the cool of the garden and walking with His creatures, and all his trouble seemed to breathe away in a heavenly hush, which every little wave repeated, softly lapping at his feet.