CHAPTER XXIX.
ON THIN ICE May had slipped away into the ranks of the dead months, and June--a June resplendent with sunshine and roses--had taken her place.
Nan, an open letter in her hand, sat perched on the low wall of the quadrangular court at Mallow, delicately sniffing the delicious salt tang which wafted up from the expanse of blue sea that stretched in front of her.

Physically she felt a different being from the girl who had lain on a couch in London and grumbled fretfully at the houses opposite.

A month at Mallow had practically restored her health.

The good Cornish cream and butter had done much towards rounding the sharpened contours of her face, and to all outward appearance she was the same Nan who had stayed at Mallow almost a year ago.
But within herself she knew that a great gulf lay fixed between those insouciant, long-ago days and this golden, scented morning.

The world had not altered.