shook her head in the negative, but a nod in the affirmative showed she was doubtful.

"I think there are only the father, mother, and one son. But I have never seen them, at least, I think not."

"Nor I," said Violet. "So, you see, they are not such dreadful characters, after all. Poor people, I dare say, they are as constantly deploring the nearness of the Park, and declaring that we spoil their view—which we certainly do."

"How absurd!" said Mrs. Mildmay. "Violet, I really believe you do not dislike them half so much as one would expect."

"Wicked as I am, I can't hate people I have never seen," Violet here laughingly replied.

And in like manner she always turned her aunt's disparagement of the Cedars aside, and contrived to say a word for the obnoxious individuals whom she had never seen.

This morning as she stood on the edge of the cliff, looking first out to sea and then at the sweet landscape, a smile rested for a moment upon her face, and her lips murmured:

"Poor auntie, if she could see the Cedars now! It looks as if the tallow which built it had caught fire. It makes me hotter than ever to look at it!"

And, with a little flutter of her dainty handkerchief, she seated herself upon the dried-up grass and turned her eyes seaward again.

As she sat thus she formed a picture beautiful enough to gladden the eyes of a Veronese in her glorious youth and loveliness, standing out in its cloud of airy muslin against the vividness of the summer sky.

Perhaps an individual slowly climbing the steep path behind her was of the same opinion, for he stopped in his laborious ascent, and, baring his well-shaped head to the slight breeze, stood, lost in an admiring reverie.

How long he would have indulged in his admiring observations it would be difficult to say, but his reverie was suddenly disturbed and his fixed regard turned aside in some confusion by the movement of Violet's head.

She had been watching a seagull, and following the bird's progress with her eyes, and had suddenly become aware of the proximity of the stranger and of the fixed and admiring regard of his two dark eyes.

Almost too suddenly, for, with something that nearly approached a start, she half rose.

Regretting the movement before it was complete, she reseated herself, and in so doing loosened her hold of the sunshade, which, with the perversity of such things, instantly took advantage of its freedom to sail over the cliff.

Violet sprang to her feet, and thoughtlessly was about to peer over the precipice in search of it, but before she had reached the extreme edge she felt a strong hand upon her arm, and, turning with some astonishment, found herself face to face with the observant stranger.

For a moment they regarded each other in silence. It is worthy of notice how much and how acutely the eye can comprehend in so short a time.

Violet saw a handsome face, tanned and mustached, a tall, lithe figure, to whose strength the grasp upon her arm bore witness, a pair of earnest, fearless eyes, and a mouth which might have been grave but for the smile which made it remarkably pleasant.

"Pray, forgive me!" said the gentleman, removing his hat with his disengaged hand. "But have you fully considered the danger which attends a downward glance from this height?"

The tone was respectful, almost reverently so, but there was a dignity and a nameless music in it also that carried it even further in one's liking.

Violet blushed like a schoolgirl, as she would have expressed it and, without a word, stepped back from the danger which she certainly had not considered, and which, by the light of the gentleman's question, was now fully revealed.

"I thank you very much," she said, as his strong hand dropped from her arm, and the stranger's face allowed itself to relax into a smile. "It was foolish and thoughtless, I," and she shuddered, "I might have fallen over. People have been known to, have they not?"

"Yes, a great many," he replied. "The strongest brain might be excused a sudden dizziness on the edge of such a precipice as this."

"Of course," assented Violet, laughing, but very quietly. "I am so much obliged; I thought only of my stupid sunshade."

"Ah!" he said, quietly, "I had forgotten that. Perhaps it has lodged on one of the jutting bushes; if it has, I may recover it for you," and he approached the edge.

Violet, who had not quite recovered from the shock which the sudden sense of her peril had produced, uttered a slight cry of warning and rebuke.

"Oh, please do not look over! It is of no consequence, not the slightest in the world."

The gentleman looked back at her alarmed face, then up at the blazing sun, and smiled significantly.

"It is of great consequence," he said, and before Violet could say another word to prevent him, he had gained the edge and was upon his knees, looking over.

"I can see it," he said, "and I think I can get it. The danger was not so great, after all; there are one or two ledges here which will bear a man's weight, I should think, and below them is your sunshade."

While he was speaking, he was cautiously, but fearlessly, lowering himself onto one of the ledges of which he had spoken, and Violet's horrified eyes lost first his legs, then his body, and last of all his good-looking face, as it disappeared below the edge.

Rooted to the spot with terror which she in vain struggled to suppress, Violet grew white as death and almost as cold.

At last her terror found utterance in a deep-drawn moan.

"Oh! come back! Please come back! I am sure you will be killed! It is horrible! Do come back!"

While she was still entreating and commanding the handsome, careless face arose above the surface again, and, with slow, cautious movements, the stranger, with the recovered sunshade in his hand, was beside her.

Violet drew a long breath of relief, and then, with a smile that was better than all the thanks in the world, said:

"I won't thank you, for I think you were more foolish than even I. You said it was dangerous to look over, and you actually went over! And all for this stupid, worthless thing." And she shook the sunshade with annoyance.

"Not altogether for the sunshade," said the gentleman, smiling again. "But I am glad I have got it for you, and I assure you the danger was less than I at first imagined it; indeed, for me there was no danger. I am blessed with a steady nerve, and have had some experience in mountaineering."

Violet looked down, and then up at his calm face.

"It was very good and kind of you," she said, "and I will thank you, after all, I think." Then she made a movement, which he took in intimation that he might say good-day, and, accordingly, he raised his hat—or, rather, would have done so, had not the wind saved him the trouble.

"How provoking!" said Violet, looking after the hat, as it sailed over the cliff, in imitation of the sunshade. "I am afraid there is a fatality about this spot. I do hope you will not go down after it, too!"

"No, indeed!" he said, with a light, pleasant laugh; "my hat is really of no consequence——"

"Oh! but of more than my parasol! You have nothing to protect your head, and the sun is quite as hot as it was five minutes ago." And she smiled naïvely.

"True," he said. "But my head is used to scorching; in fact, rather likes it."

"You must take my sunshade," said Violet, with provoking gravity.

"No, thank you," he said, imitating the gravity and suppressing the smile. "I do not dread the sunstroke, and I have but a few steps to go," nodding to the blazing Cedars.

Violet was guilty of an unmistakable start.

"The Cedars!" she exclaimed, extending her beautiful eyes to their widest,