Yet there was nothing to be done.

He felt it would be unwise to speak of the matter in any way to her--she was a woman who would certainly find it difficult to believe that she had won, or could possibly win the love of a lover at her age;--she might even resent it,--no one could tell.

And so the days of April paced softly on, in bloom and sunlight, till May came in with a blaze of colour and radiance, and the last whiff of cold wind blew itself away across the sea.

The "biting nor'easter," concerning which the comic press gives itself up to senseless parrot-talk with each recurrence of the May month, no matter how warm and beautiful that month may be, was a "thing foregone and clean forgotten,"-- and under the mild and beneficial influences of the mingled sea and moorland air, Helmsley gained a temporary rush of strength, and felt so much better, that he was able to walk down to the shore and back again once or twice a a day, without any assistance, scarcely needing even the aid of his stick to lean upon.

The shore remained his favourite haunt; he was never tired of watching the long waves roll in, edged with gleaming ribbons of foam, and roll out again, with the musical clatter of drawn pebbles and shells following the wake of the backward sweeping ripple,--and he made friends with many of the Weircombe fisherfolk, who were always ready to chat with him concerning themselves and the difficulties and dangers of their trade.
The children, too, were all eager to run after "old David," as they called him,--and many an afternoon he would sit in the sun, with a group of these hardy little creatures gathered about him, listening entranced, while he told them strange stories of foreign lands and far travels,--travels which men took "in search of gold"-- as he would say, with a sad little smile--"gold, which is not nearly so much use as it seems to be." "But can't us buy everything with plenty of money ?" asked a seven-year-old urchin, on one of these occasions, looking solemnly up into his face with a pair of very round, big brown eyes.
"Not everything, my little man," he answered, smoothing the rough locks of the small inquirer with a very tender hand.