To see persons looking with children’s eyes at any ordinary scenery, is a proof that they possess the charming faculty of drawing new sensations from an old experience—­a healthy sign, rare in these feverish days—­the mark of an imperishable brightness of nature.

Both brother and sister could do this; Cytherea more noticeably.  They watched the undulating corn-lands, monotonous to all their companions; the stony and clayey prospect succeeding those, with its angular and abrupt hills.  Boggy moors came next, now withered and dry—­the spots upon which pools usually spread their waters showing themselves as circles of smooth bare soil, over-run by a net-work of innumerable little fissures.  Then arose plantations of firs, abruptly terminating beside meadows cleanly mown, in which high-hipped, rich-coloured cows, with backs horizontal and straight as the ridge of a house, stood motionless or lazily fed.  Glimpses of the sea now interested them, which became more and more frequent till the train finally drew up beside the platform at Budmouth.

‘The whole town is looking out for us,’ had been Graye’s impression throughout the day.  He called upon Mr. Gradfield—­the only man who had been directly informed of his coming—­and found that Mr. Gradfield had forgotten it.

However, arrangements were made with this gentleman—­a stout, active, grey-bearded burgher of sixty—­by which Owen was to commence work in his office the following week.

The same day Cytherea drew up and sent off the advertisement appended:—­

’A young lady is desirous of meeting with an engagement as governess or companion.  She is competent to teach English, French, and Music.  Satisfactory references—­Address, C. G., Post-Office, Budmouth.’

It seemed a more material existence than her own that she saw thus delineated on the paper.  ‘That can’t be myself; how odd I look!’ she said, and smiled.

2.  July the eleventh

On the Monday subsequent to their arrival in Budmouth, Owen Graye attended at Mr. Gradfield’s office to enter upon his duties, and his sister was left in their lodgings alone for the first time.

Despite the sad occurrences of the preceding autumn, an unwonted cheerfulness pervaded her spirit throughout the day.  Change of scene—­and that to untravelled eyes—­conjoined with the sensation of freedom from supervision, revived the sparkle of a warm young nature ready enough to take advantage of any adventitious restoratives.  Point-blank grief tends rather to seal up happiness for a time than to produce that attrition which results from griefs of anticipation that move onward with the days:  these may be said to furrow away the capacity for pleasure.

Her expectations from the advertisement began to be extravagant.  A thriving family, who had always sadly needed her, was already definitely pictured in her fancy, which, in its exuberance, led her on to picturing its individual members, their possible peculiarities, virtues, and vices, and obliterated for a time the recollection that she would be separated from her brother.