With Marion's feverish longing for the open air, she would not allow Winifred to go into the house, but insisted upon her walking to the end of the garden and crossing one of the newly mown fields, which led up to a crowning circle of firs commanding the widest view in the neighbourhood. There she poured out a torrent of hopes and fears, all Marmaduke's wrongs, and all she had determined Mr Tregennas should do. It struck Winifred at times as a little strange that Marion could speak so readily of things which her own instinct, more delicate and more proud, would have guarded like a treasure in a casket, but she put the thought aside. Marion was lying on the grass, rolling the short blades into balls, while Winifred sat up and looked straight before her over the gently sloping fields, the apple orchards, Underham with its white houses and black wharves, the river winding and broadening between red wooded banks, until it lost itself in a distant dimly glimmering sea. All the colours blended into each other with a sweet fair freshness. There was just that subtile charm of warmth which brings life, not languor. Sounds reached them, softened, but vigorous. Vessels were discernible in the river, coming up with spread sails before the breeze, and timber or coal on board for those same black wharves. It might have been a blank to Marion, whose mind was too self-absorbed to be affected by the outer world, but Winifred was at all times open to these external influences, and they contrasted strangely with Marion's impetuous complaints of misery. "If I could be only at Trenance!" she ended. "Dear Marion, Anthony will be there,--he will do his best. Old Mr Tregennas is sure to like him." "Anthony!" said Marion, with a hard little laugh. "Anthony will fell into one of his fevers. He will find the estate at sixes and sevens, and imagine it to be his mission to set it to rights. Besides, it is Marmaduke, not Anthony, whom it is of consequence that Mr Tregennas should like." Winifred hardly knew what to say. Her sympathies were so active that a strongly expressed idea such as Marion's was apt to carry her away, even in spite of her better judgment, and yet her mind was healthfully constituted, and repelled by what was morbid or strained. Surely there was no such absence of hope in Marmaduke's lot that it should be bewailed as unbearable. Surely Mr Miles had painfully uprooted himself, and Anthony agreed to a distasteful journey for his sake. And meanwhile the sun was shining, and the larks singing, and a sea-breeze sweeping along the water up to the fir-crowned height. She must have sung, too, if it had not been for the risk of hurting Marion's feelings. As it was, her foot was beating on the short grass, and her eyes danced in spite of all her efforts to feel concerned. "What are you thinking about?" asked Marion discontentedly. "Of what we shall wear as your bridesmaids. If you don't let me choose for myself, I will never forgive you."