“Hail, Cassandra!  Hail!”

I sprang up the highest rock on the point, and looked seaward, to catch a glimpse of the flying Spirit who had touched me.  My soul was brought in poise and quickened with the beauty before me!  The wide, shimmering plain of sea—­its aerial blue, stretching beyond the limits of my vision in one direction, upbearing transverse, cloud-like islands in another, varied and shadowed by shore and sky—­mingled its essence with mine.

The wind was coming; under the far horizon the mass of waters begun to undulate.  Dark, spear-like clouds rose above it and menaced the east.  The speedy wind tossed and teased the sea nearer and nearer, till I was surrounded by a gulf of milky green foam.  As the tide rolled in I retreated, stepping back from rock to rock, round which the waves curled and hissed, baffled in their attempt to climb over me.  I stopped on the verge of the tide-mark; the sea was seeking me and I must wait.  It gave tongue as its lips touched my feet, roaring in the caves, falling on the level beaches with a mad, boundless joy!

“Have then at life!” my senses cried.  “We will possess its longing silence, rifle its waiting beauty.  We will rise up in its light and warmth, and cry, ‘Come, for we wait.’  Its roar, its beauty, its madness—­we will have—­all.”  I turned and walked swiftly homeward, treading the ridges of white sand, the black drifts of sea-weed, as if they had been a smooth floor.

Aunt Merce was at the door.

“Now,” she said, “we are going to have the long May storm.  The gulls are flying round the lighthouse.  How high the tide is!  You must want your dinner.  I wish you would see to Fanny; she is lording it over us all.”

“Yes, yes, I will do it; you may depend on me.  I will reign, and serve also.”

“Oh, Cassandra, can you give up yourself?”

“I must, I suppose.  Confound the spray; it is flying against the windows.”

“Come in; your hair is wet, and your shawl is wringing.  Now for a cold.”

“I never shall have any more colds, Aunt Merce; never mean to have anything to myself—­entirely, you know.”

“You do me good, you dear girl; I love you”; and she began to cry.  “There’s nothing but cold ham and boiled rice for your dinner.”

“What time is it?”

“Near three.”

I opened the door of the dining-room; the table was laid, and I walked round it, on a tour of inspection.

“I thought you might as well have your dinner, all at once,” said Fanny, by the window, with her feet tucked up on the rounds of her chair.  “Here it is.”

“I perceive.  Who arranged it?”

“Me and Paddy Margaret.”

“How many tablecloths have we?”

“Plenty.  I thought as you didn’t seem to care about any regular hour for dinner, and made us all wait, I needn’t be particular; besides, I am not the waiter, you know.”