‘You know I always drive you, mamma.’

’These are worse hills than at Silverfold, and I don’t want you to come down by the sea-wall.’

’I am sure I would not go there for something, among all the stupid people.’

‘If you keep to the turnpike you can’t come to much harm with Bruno.’

’That is awfully—–­I mean horribly dusty!  There’s the cliff road towards Arnscombe.’

’That is safe enough.  I don’t think you could come to much real damage; but remember that for Kally a start or an alarm would be really as hurtful as an accident to a person in health.’

‘Poor old Bruno could hardly frighten a mouse,’ said Gillian.

‘Only take care, and don’t be enterprising.’

Gillian drove up to the door of Cliff House, and Kalliope took her seat.  It was an enjoyable afternoon, with the fresh clearness of June sunshine after showers, great purple shadows of clouds flitting over the sea, dimpled by white crests of wave that broke the golden path of sunshine into sparkling ripples, while on the other side of the cliff road lay the open moorland, full of furze, stunted in growth, but brilliant in colour, and relieved by the purple browns of blossoming grasses and the white stars of stitchwort.

‘This is delicious!’ murmured Kalliope, with a gesture of enjoyment.

‘Much nicer than down below!’

‘Oh yes; it seems to stretch one’s very soul!’

’And the place is so big and wide that no one can worry with sketching.’

‘Yes, it defies that!’ said Kalliope, laughing.

’So, Fa—–­Captain Henderson won’t crop up as he does at every sketchable place.  Didn’t you know he was here?’

‘Yes, Alexis told me he had seen him.’

’Everybody has seen him, I should think; he is always about with nothing to do but that everlasting sketching.’

‘He must have been very sorry to be obliged to retire.’

’Horrid!  It was weak, and he might have been in Egypt, well out of the way.  No, I didn’t mean that’—–­as Kalliope looked shocked—–­’but he might have been getting distinction and promotion.’

‘He used to be very kind,’ said Kalliope, in a tone of regretful remonstrance.  ‘It was he who taught me first to draw.’

‘He!  What, Fa—–­Captain Henderson?’

’Yes; when I was quite a little girl, and he had only just joined.  He found me out before our quarters at Gibraltar trying to draw an old Spaniard selling oranges, and he helped me, and showed me how to hold my pencil.  I have got it still—–­the sketch.  Then he used to lend me things to copy, and give me hints till—–­oh, till my father said I was too old for that sort of thing!  Then, you know, my father got his commission, and I went to school at Belfast.’

‘And you have never seen him since?’

’Scarcely.  Sometimes he was on leave in my holidays, and you know we were at the depot afterwards, but I shall always feel that all that I have been able to do since has been owing to him.’