We left the last regular street on that side of the city, and entered a road, bordered by trees and bushes, which hid the country from us. We crept through a gap in it, crossed two or three spongy fields, and ascended a hill, reaching an abrupt edge of the rocks, over whose earthy crest we walked. Below it I saw a strip of the sea, hemmed in on all sides, for the light was too vague for me to see its narrow outlet. It looked milky, misty, and uncertain; the predominant shores stifled its voice, if it ever had one. Adelaide and Ann crouched over the edge of the rock, reciting, in a chanting tone, from a poem beginning:
"The river of thy thoughts must keep
its solemn course too still and deep
For idle eyes to see."
Their false intonation of voice and the wordy spirit of the poem convinced me that poetry with them was an artificial taste. I turned away. The dark earth and the rolling sky were better. Ben followed.
"I hope Veronica's letter will come to-morrow," he said with a groan.
"Veronica! Why Veronica?"
"Don't torment me."
"She writes letters seldom."
"I have written her."
"She has never written me."
"It might be the means of revealing you to each other to do so."