the Russells looking away over the sea. They went to the village again, and she led them by the path through the fields, past the old farm, straight to Laneithin.

There it was, down among the trees, in the hollow. They came to the big stone gateway and walked in. The house looked smaller, and there was something deserted about it; no one was living in it now, but it was all so familiar. There was the little window of the room at the top, with the railed verandah, where she used to be sent when she was a naughty child. She remembered throwing a glass of medicine out of that window one day, and the glass fell on the flower-bed and did not break. She would not go in; she could see that the ground-floor rooms were dismantled and bare; it would only be sadness to her, and she must not keep the Russells waiting. So they went back into the road, and on a few steps to the big farm buildings and stableyard which adjoined the house, and then turned back towards St. Erroc spire.

How often she had thought of Laneithin and St. Erroc when she had been thousands of miles away! Was she really there again with the wild, solitary Cornish moorland about her? You do not know what it is, you who have never left England. You do not know how the old places and the old faces at home' become sweet and strange and sacred to those who think of them year after year among aliens in a foreign land. Alas! there were no old faces in St. Erroc,-none that Helen loved. She did see in the road one that she knew, the face of a man who used to work at Laneithin as a gardener; she spoke to him, and he remembered her, but seemed little interested to learn who she was.

She stopped on the way back at a cottage, the wall of which was nearly covered by a tall fuchsia which grew into the upper windows. In her day a dear old woman used to live here, Mrs. James, who told her Cornish stories and taught her Cornish words. The door was opened by a smart-looking young woman with a board-school manner and a fringe. 'Mrs. James? No. I have heard tell of an old Mrs. James who once lived here, but she died long ago.'

Helen walked on to the village. She had been with her aunt into most of those houses, but she had not the heart to try now whether there was any one left whom she knew as a girl. What did they care for her? She would have found plenty of the old folk about if she could have stayed; but it was time to go on, and she felt depressed and tired. How often she had thought of

coming back to St. Erroc, and of every familiar place she would go to, and of all the old people she would meet. And this was the end. A hasty half-hour or two, and no welcome; and the feeling that she was a stranger in the home of her fathers. She was very silent as they walked back to the cove. When they were on board again the Admiral looked at her face and patted her hand and said: 'Well, well, you could not have lived there alone.'

They sailed home with a gentle breeze off shore. Once or twice it almost failed them by the headlands, but they got round somehow, and found the breeze again behind the point. It was a beautiful evening as they threaded the Manacles and sailed into Falmouth Bay. The sun was low down over the round hills inland, but it showed up the gray tower of Pendennis, and the white lighthouse, and the blue line of coast away to the Dodman. They kept a little inside Pendennis, in case the wind should draw more ahead; but it held true, and soon after sunset they were under the gray castle. They were almost becalmed there, but a little air came down from the inner harbour and took them slowly home.

Helen felt happier now. When they landed in the summer twilight the tide was high, and the smooth clear water lay upon the pebbles, within a few inches of the bushes and silver weed under the garden bank. As they walked up under the trees Russell said to her: 'I am glad I came to-day. I feel now as if I had known you all your life. I can imagine you as a child in that house, and sailing along these coasts with old Tregenza.'

And for a moment she caught the thrill of feeling in his voice.

CHAPTER XLIX

A ROUGH SAIL

HELEN stayed on at Menarvor for some weeks longer. They seemed determined to keep her until they went themselves, and they knew she had no real reason for going except the fear of staying too long. And with their cordial faces before her, how could she doubt? She knew the old people really liked having her there, and still as they pressed her to stay she stayed and stayed. It was the last time.

The lime at the bottom of the lawn grew yellower daily, until its top shone very bright against the blue water. It was still delicate and beautiful even in decay. The chestnut got rusty and then brown in patches. It had been richer in its glory; it was coarser in its ruin. The oaks along the rocky water-line began to turn. The fields were covered with rows of corn shocks, looking in the distance like soldiers skirmishing; and then the corn was carried and the fields were bare. The tangled hedges were almost flowerless, except for a few belated blackberry blossoms and the soft green of the ivy. But they were still full of colour. There were the yellow and brown fern leaves, and the long festoons of bryony, with its heavy berries of red and green and yellow. There were other berries too,-the honeysuckle, green and red, and the wild rose, and the vivid glossy crimson and green of the holly, and the duller, deeper tint of the hips and haws; and over it all was the trailing corn left by the waggons.

They had some delicious autumn weather, blue skies and gentle breezes. Then they used to go out sailing, all of them together, and come back at sunset. Sometimes they were later, and the darkness had fallen, and the thousand lights of Falmouth glittered tier upon tier above the waters of the harbour. Mrs. Russell

had taken to it now. Her sail to St. Erroc had done something to convert her, and her next attempt won her over completely.

It was a warm and cloudless afternoon. A very light breeze from the southward just stirred the surface of the water here and there, leaving smooth patches which shone like polished metal. A slight swell was coming in from the open sea. As the little Swallow drifted slowly out with the tide, catching a breath of air at intervals, they could hear every sound across the still water,the shrill cries of some gulls hovering over a school of fish a mile away; the bark of a dog in a field near St. Just, where two men were rabbit-shooting; the distant roar of the train as it passed over a viaduct miles inland. A boat was rowing across to the Ganges, and the sound of the oars in the rowlocks came to them with every stroke. Through it they heard six bells strike on the ship, whose ensign was hanging motionless. They went slowly out through the vessels at anchor in the harbour, and watched the smooth swell breaking in foam upon the rocks at Trefusis Point. There was a light haze ahead of them, over the open sea; and against it stood out the gray tower of Pendennis, and the dark form of a schooner with all sails set steering east, and the tall mark on the Black Rock. As the sun sank, a purple light came over Falmouth town; there was a flush above the haze to seaward, and a brighter flush over the long line of hill to the east. The water was coloured with exquisite shades of blue and rose as its smooth surface waved with the swell. Then the flush faded away from the eastern sky. To westward, over the wooded hills where the sun had gone down, there was a crimson glow which seemed to pass through the deep sapphire of the sky, and yet not to mingle with it, so that both remained pure and perfect, though together. At last two great planets came out, one to southward and one nearer the sunset, over the old church and oak-lined creek of Mylor. As they brightened, the Swallow glided up to her moorings under the shadow of the trees.

After that Mrs. Russell often came out and enjoyed her sail, or pretended she did. Perhaps she was not altogether thoughtless of others.

Then for some days there was heavy rain and wind, and looking down from the windows they could see the black gusts smite and spin upon the smooth water under the bank, while a little farther out it was white with crested waves. Now and then a hungry gull struggled past over the wave-tops, against the wind, with the spray flying past it. The leafy screen between the win

dows and the sea had got thin. The trunk and branches of the lime were showing; but it looked greener, more like spring again, -the wind had combed out all the yellow leaves. The little Swallow lay at her moorings, plainly visible now, with her head towards them. They could see her starting and moving uneasily as the gusts struck her. It was too wet and rough to go

out.

After a few days the bad weather passed off, and it grew fine again. Helen came down one morning to find the sun shining brightly, and the wind gone round to the northward. Colonel Russell, who had been away shooting, had come back by the morning train. Then Helen and the Admiral settled that they would go out for one more real good sail down the coast.

'Where shall we go?' she asked.

'I don't care. It is all the same to me. Would you like to go to St. Erroc again?'

Helen shook her head. 'No. If you really don't mind, I would rather go the other way.'

'Well, if it is fine to-morrow, why not start early and try Fowey or Looe? We might run over there to breakfast and get back to dinner comfortably if the wind is off shore as it is today.'

'That would be very nice. I should like to see Looe.'

Mrs. Russell declined to be one of the party. No, James, I will stay at home,' she said. 'You would only have a calm if I came; and in any case I don't care to be out all day. It's too much for me.'

'Will you come, Hal?' the Admiral said.

'No, sir; I think not. I will stay with my mother.'

Helen was suddenly conscious that the pleasure of the trip had departed. She had thought they would all go. Mrs. Russell was too wise to discuss the question in public, but when they broke up for the night she made her son come into her room for a minute. 'Hal, dear, I want you to go to-morrow.’

'I would rather not, mother.'

'My boy,' she said, 'I want you to go. You will go to please me.'

เ 'Mother, dear, it is no use. I am only making myself miserable. She does not care a straw for me. It was plainer than ever when we met this morning.'

'Try. You cannot tell. I believe she does, or will. You will go?'