When it was over and the plates and knife and fork had been put back in the basket, the girl arose, very unwillingly, to depart.
“I must go now,” she said; “they will all be looking for me. But, oh! I have had just such a grand time, and I am so glad we found each other! Ain’t you, David Lindsay?”
“Yes, indeed!” exclaimed the boy.
She laughed, kissed her hand to him, and ran off home, singing as she went.
This was the first meeting between Gloria de la Vera and David Lindsay, the poor fisher lad, whom, a few years later, in her utter desperation, she asked to marry her; but many strange events were to happen before she could be driven to such despair as to cast her beautiful and blameless self, with her rank and fortune, at the feet of this humble lad, “unlearned and poor,” and lose herself in the deep dishonor of a low and loveless marriage.
CHAPTER III
THE GIRL’S MISSION TO THE BOY
She was his star. Byron.
Gloria, singing as she went, and skipping like a kid from point to point, over the breach in the sea wall, and dancing through the old grass meadows and turnip fields—hurried on towards her home.
Suddenly her song ceased, and she stood still.
She saw her uncle walking alone with slow and melancholy steps, and his head bowed down upon his breast.