not resume its normal beat. There was something utterly unnerving about the sight of that quietly lighted apartment, mysteriously hung between the dark mysterious sky and wind and night and sea. Gabrielle did not fall asleep until she heard Aunt Flora and David come upstairs.

[38]

CHAPTER IV

Gabrielle was wandering along an overgrown path before breakfast the next morning when David came after her and sauntered at her side. The sun was shining brilliantly after a clearing storm, the air aromatic with delicious leaf-scent, and the sea dancing and blue. Everything was singing and shining in a warm bath of sweet clear light, there were a few late birds hopping about, and gulls walked on the sunken brick paths as boldly as the pigeons did. Under the thick growth of the cedars and conifers golden shafts penetrated; the paths and garden beds were deep in sodden and drifted leaves.

Gabrielle

“Oh, what a morning!” sang Gabrielle, as David joined her.

“What a morning!” he echoed. And he added, “I needn’t ask if you slept well?”

For indeed she was glowing from a bath, from a night’s deep rest, glowing with all the morning beauty of healthy eighteen. The sun shone upon her warm brown hair, rousing golden lights in it, and her gray-sapphire eyes were shining. David noted that she walked with a little spring, as if in mere walking there were not quite enough action to free the bubbling vitality within her.

“I didn’t dare go far,” she said, “for I suppose breakfast is still at half-past eight? But presently—when[39] I’ve unpacked and gotten things straightened out—I’m going to explore!”

[39]

“I like this Quaker costume,” David said, glancing at the plain gray dress.

“This? It’s the Sunday uniform,” Gabrielle told him. “Black on week-days, and black always for the street—sometimes we went to the Madeleine or Notre Dame on Sundays, you know, and twice to organ concerts. But these we always wore indoors at St. Susanna’s.”

“All very well for the smaller girls,” David smiled, “but didn’t you others rebel?”

“Ah, but I have other clothes,” said Gabrielle, interestedly. “There’s a lovely countess in Paris, a widow, who is one of the old children——”

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