“What a view it is,” said Arthur. “Look, Mildred, how dark the clumps of sugar-cane look against the green of the vines, and how pretty the red roofs of the town are peeping out of the groves of fruit-trees. Do you see the great shadow thrown upon the sea by that cliff? how deep and cool the water looks within it, and how it sparkles where the sun strikes.”
“Yes, it is beautiful, and the pines smell sweet.”
“I wish Angela could see it,” he said, half to himself. Mildred, who was lying back lazily among the ferns, her hat off, her eyes closed, so that the long dark lashes lay upon her cheek, and her head resting on her arm, suddenly started up.
“What is the matter?”
“Nothing, you woke me from a sort of dream, that’s all.”
“This spring I remember going with her to look at a view near the Abbey House, and saying—what I often think when I look at anything beautiful and full of life—that it depressed one to know that all this was so much food for death, and its beauty a thing that to-day is and to-morrow is not.”
“And what did she say?”
“She said that to her it spoke of immortality, and that in everything around her she saw evidence of eternal life.”
“She must be very fortunate. Shall I tell you of what it reminds me?”
“What?”