And I am grateful to you for waking me," she retorted with a sudden gay malice that subdued him.

And she, delicate nose in the air, laughingly watching him, went on with her punishment: "You see what you've done, don't you ?--saved me from an entire morning wasted in sentimental reverie over what might have been.

Now you can appreciate it, can't you ?--your wisdom in appearing in the flesh to save a silly girl the effort of evoking you in the spirit! Ah, Mr.Siward, I am vastly obliged to you! Pray sit here beside me in the flesh, for fear that in your absence I might commit the folly that tempted me here." His low running laughter accompanying her voice had stimulated her to a gay audacity, which for the instant extinguished in her the little fear of him she had been barely conscious of.
"Do you know," he said, "that you also aroused me from my sun-dreams ?" "Did I?
And can't you resume them ?" "You save me the necessity." "Oh, that is a second-hand compliment," she said disdainfully--"a weak plagiarism on what I conveyed very wittily.

You were probably really asleep, and dreaming of bird-murder." He waited for her to finish, then, amused eyes searching, he roamed about until high on a little drifted sand dune he found a place for himself; and while she watched him indignantly, he curled up in the sunshine, and, dropping his head on the hot sand, calmly closed his eyes.
"Upon--my word!" she breathed aloud.
He unclosed his eyes.

"Now you may dream; you can't avoid it," he observed lazily, and closed his eyes; and neither taunts nor jeers nor questions, nor fragments of shells flung with intent to hit, stirred him from his immobility.
She tired of the attempt presently, and sat silent, elbows on her thighs, hands propping her chin.