Then smiling at me as she went on: "You seem to think it is my fault, Mr.Ford, that I do not love the sea." "It is your misfortune," I replied, and our eyes met.
I meant nothing by the words, but a shifting, curious look came into her face, and for the first time since I had been there her eyes fell before mine.
"I suppose it is," she said, quietly; but from the moment we were never quite the same again.

She watched me curiously, and I knew it.
"Like or dislike, Frances, give way this time," said Lance, "and John will go with us." "Do you really wish it ?" she asked.
"I should like it; I think it would do us all good.

And, after all, yours is but a fancy, Frances." "If we go at all," she said, "let us go to the great Northern sea, not to the South, where it is smiling and treacherous." "Those southern seas hide much," I said; and again she looked at me with a curious, intent gaze--a far-off gaze, as though she were trying to make something out.
"What do they hide, John ?" asked Lance, indifferently.
"Sharp rocks and shifting sands," I answered.
"So do the Northern seas," he replied.
A soft, sweet voice said: "Every one has his own taste.

I love the country; you love the sea.

I find more beauty in this bunch of lilac than I should in all the seaweed that was ever thrown on the beach; to me there is more poetry and more loveliness in the ripple of the leaves, the changeful hues of the trees and flowers, the corn in the fields, the fruit in the orchards, than in the perpetual monotony of the sea." "That is not fair, Frances," cried Lance.