Page:A Little Country Girl - Coolidge (1887).djvu/291

 surf; no carriages were drawn up on the higher part of the beach, and the road leading around Easton's Point showed only a few scattered figures and one solitary horseman on its entire length. Here and there along the windings of the Cliff Walk a single walker appeared, dark against the brightness of the sky, or two girls were seen pacing the smooth gravel, with fluttering dresses, and hair blown by the soft October wind. The sea was as beautiful in color as ever, but it had changed with the change of the season. The blue seemed more rarefied, the opalescent tints more intense; deep purple reflections lay in the shadows made by the rocky points, and there was a bright clearness of atmosphere quite unlike the dream-like mistiness of the summer.

The cousins sat side by side on the big rock, just where they had sat on that June day which seemed to Candace so long ago. Gertrude was no longer critical or scornful. She sat a little farther back than Candace, and from time to time glanced at her side-face with a sort of puzzled expression. Cannie,