Page:A Little Country Girl - Coolidge (1887).djvu/94

 left, fearing that some acquaintance might be coming to see her in company with this rather shabby little companion. "Would you like to walk up the Cliffs a little way, or shall we go down to the beach?" she asked.

"Oh, let us just go as far as that point," said Candace, indicating where, to the right, past a turnstile, a smooth gravel path wound its way between the beautifully kept borders of grass. The path ran on the very edge of the Cliff, and the outer turf dipped at a steep incline to where the sharp rock ran down perpendicularly, but to the very verge it was as fine and as perfectly cut as anywhere else. Candace wondered who held the gardeners and kept them safe while they shaved the grass so smoothly in this dangerous spot, but she did not like to ask. Gertrude's indifferent manner drove her in upon herself and made her shy.

A hundred feet and more below them the sea was washing into innumerable rocky fissures with a hollow booming sound. The cliff-line was broken into all sorts of bold