He bent and lightly kissed her. "Good-bye! Don't go and get drowned, either of you, for my sake! Yes, you can leave the car here. It won't rain at present."
He stood on his own step and watched them go, with a motherly smile on his wrinkled face.
"Bless their hearts!" he murmured, as he finally turned away. "I'll swear it's all a mistake. She looks like a queen this morning; and as for Olga, if she has really given her heart to that ugly doctor chap I have never yet seen a woman in love."
He entered the house with the words, and straightway dismissed them from his mind.
"We will go to the shore first," Violet decreed. "Mrs. Briggs won't be expecting us so early. I hear that some more of the Priory land has been slipping into the sea. We must go and see it."
So to the shore they went. The slip was not a serious one. They made their way to the spot over loose sand and rocks, and dropped down in a sandy hollow to rest.
"Poor old Priory!" said Violet. "It's sure to be swallowed up like the rest some day. I wonder if I shall live to see it."
"Oh, surely not!" said Olga.
Violet laughed. "Do you think I am destined to die young then?"
"I can't imagine you dying or growing old," said Olga, with simplicity.