“She said that to her it spoke of immortality, and that in everything around her she saw evidence of eternal life.”

“She must be very fortunate.  Shall I tell you of what it reminds me?”

“What?”

“Of neither death nor immortality, but of the full, happy, pulsing existence of the hour, and of the beautiful world that pessimists like yourself and mystics like your Angela think so poorly of, but which is really so glorious and so rich in joy.  Why, this sunlight and those flowers, and the wide sparkle of that sea, are each and all a happiness, and the health in our veins and the beauty in our eyes, deep pleasures that we never realize till we lose them.  Death, indeed, comes to us all, but why add to its terrors by thinking of them whilst it is far off?  And, as for life after death, it is a faint, vague thing, more likely to be horrible than happy.  This world is our only reality, the only thing that we can grasp; here alone we know that we can enjoy, and yet how we waste our short opportunities for enjoyment!  Soon youth will have slipped away, and we shall be too old for love.  Roses fade fastest, Arthur, when the sun is bright; in the evening when they have fallen, and the ground is red with withering petals, do you not think we shall wish that we had gathered more?”

“Yours is a pleasant philosophy, Mildred,” he said, struggling faintly in his own mind against her conclusions.

But at this moment, somehow, his fingers touched her own and were presently locked fast within her little palm, and for the first time in his life they sat hand in hand.  But, happily for him, he did not venture to look into her eyes, and, before many minutes had passed, Miss Terry’s voice was heard calling him loudly.

“I suppose that you must go,” said Mildred, with a shade of vexation in her voice and a good many shades upon her face, “or she will be blundering down here.  I will come, too; it is time for tea.”

On arriving at the spot whence the sounds proceeded, they found Miss Terry surrounded by a crowd of laughing and excited bearers, and pouring out a flood of the most vigorous English upon an unfortunate islander, who stood, a silver mug in each hand, bowing and shrugging his shoulders, and enunciating with every variety of movement indicative of humiliation, these mystic words: 

“Mee washeeuppee, signora, washeeuppee—­e.”

“What is the matter now, Agatha?”

“Matter, why I woke up and found this man stealing the cups; I charged him at once with my umbrella, but he dodged and I fell down, and the umbrella has gone over the rock there.  Take him up at once, Arthur—­ there’s the stolen property on his person.  Hand him over to justice.”

“Good gracious, Agatha, what are you thinking about?  The poor man only wants to wash the things out.”

“Then I should like to know why he could not tell me so in plain English,” said Miss Terry, retiring discomfited amidst shouts of laughter from the whole party, including the supposed thief.