"Then let me read it, Opal, and you can listen!"
And he took the book gently from her hand, and read until the sun was smiling its farewell to the laughing waters.
That evening a strong wind was playing havoc with the waves, and the fury of the maddened spray was beating a fierce accompaniment to their hearts.
"How I love the wind," said Opal. "More than all else in Nature I love it, I think, whatever its mood may be. I never knew why—probably because I, too, am capricious and full of changing moods. If it is tender and caressing, I respond to its appeal; if it is boisterous and wild, I grow reckless and rash in sympathy; and when it is fierce and passionate, I feel my blood rush within me. I am certainly a child of the wind!"
"Let us hope you will never experience a cyclone," said the Count, drily. "It might be disastrous!"
"True, it might," said Opal, and she did not smile. "I echo your kind hope, Count de Roannes."
And the Boy looked, and listened, and loved!