sprang from than it would have pleased her to know.
“My darling! My own Evan! it will kill me,” Caroline exclaimed, and passionately imploring him, she looked so hopelessly beautiful, that Evan was agitated, and caressed her, while he said softly: “Where our honour is not involved I would submit to your smallest wish.”
“It involves my life—my destiny!” murmured Caroline.
Could he have known the double meaning in her words, and what a saving this sacrifice of his was to accomplish, he would not have turned to do it feeling abandoned of heaven and earth.
The Countess stood rigidly as he went forth. Caroline was on her knees, sobbing.
“The dishonour of my family is mine, and on me the burden of it rests.”
The general notion that the seaside is superlatively charming in September and October has probably arisen from the circumstance that the order of persons who utter their feelings in print seldom go to the sea except in those months. Literary London, as well as political and fashionable London, takes its holiday in the autumn; and when it tells of its rambles, it describes the scenery of autumn. My household have enjoyed seaside pleasures during all the months between April and November; and we agree in preferring to spend the long days and the warmest weather amidst the inexhaustible pursuits and the fresh breezes of a fine coast. The Midsummer days are not too long for what we have to do; and the dog-days are not too oppressive to persons who love bathing and perpetual dabbling in the waves, and discovering the coolest recesses of caverns in the cliffs. On a flat shore, where there are breadths of deep sand to cross to reach the sea, and no heights from which to survey a great expanse of waters, and to hail the breezes, and from which no shadows are cast below, the stormiest season must be the grandest. I have enjoyed a November walk on such a shore, amidst the steady roll of the gathering waves, and the dash of the spray, and the thunderous beat of the waters upon the land. I well know the pleasures of amber-gathering after an autumnal storm; but these are the exceptional treats of seaside life. The regular and constant delights of the coast are in their prime three months earlier. As I have before said, we go in July, and return home for the autumn privileges of country life. We have the comfort of peace and quiet during our holiday, and meet, as we depart, the throngs who are
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