Page:Maud Howe - A Newport Aquarelle.djvu/170

 of veteran waltzers, grown old in the practice of their favorite step, of whom Gray Grosvenor was the major-general.

The young people wandered off in groups, some of them climbing the hill to get a wider view. Others explored the damp and mildewed granaries of the old mill, while all to whom the seaboard was native were drawn to the beach, where the wavelets gently lapped the stony shore.

At the back of the narrow beach rises a bank on which some charitable person has placed a bench beneath the shadow of a group of heavy shade trees. On this bench Gladys and Larkington seated themselves, and the girl, collecting a heap of flat pebbles at her feet, tried to skip them across the water.

Larkington watched her as she rose and stood, intent on making her pebbles skip three times; she was so willowy and graceful, standing just beside him, touching him with her dress, quite within his reach, that