The sun was now sinking into the water, and exquisite hues were stealing over the soft sea. The picturesque Mediterranean boats with lateen-sails were coming towards home, and one whose little sail was crimson made a lovely picture on the water. At the sea-wall we met Miss Graves gloomily taking a walk, and presently the phaeton with Margaret and Lloyd stopped near us as we stood looking at the hues. Two ships in the distance sailed first on blue water, then on rose, on lilac, on purple, violet, and gold. Over the sea fell a pink flush, met on the horizon by salmon in a broad band, then next above it amber, then violet edged with rose, and higher still a zone of clear pale green bordered with gold. At the same moment the Red Rocks were flooded with rose light which extended in a lovely flush up the high gray peaks behind far in the sky, lingering there when all the lower splendor was gone, and the sea and shore veiled in dusky twilight gray.
"It is almost as beautiful at sunrise," said Mrs. Clary; "and then, too, you can see the Fairy Island."
"What is that?" I asked.
"Never mind what it is in reality," answered Mrs. Clary. "I consider it enchanted—the Fortunate Land, whose shores and mountain-peaks can be seen only between dawn and sunrise, when they loom up distinctly, soon fading away, however, mysteriously into the increasing daylight, and becoming entirely invisible when the sun appears."
"I saw it this morning," said Miss Graves, soberly. "It is only Corsica."
"Brigands and vendetta," said Inness.
"Napoleon," said all the rest of us.
"My idea of it is much the best," said Mrs. Clary; "it is Fairy-land, the lost Isles of the Blest."
After that each morning at breakfast the question always was, who had seen Corsica. And a vast amount of ingenious evasion was displayed in the answers. However, I did see it once. It rose from the water on the southeastern horizon, its line of purple mountain-peaks and low shore so distinctly visible that it seemed as if one could take the little boat with the crimson sail and be over there in an hour, although it was ninety miles away; but while I gazed it faded slowly, melted, as it were, into the gold of the awakening day.