"
"What a lovely night it is!" said Ethelwyn, who had come into my
study--where I always sat with unblinded windows, that the night and her
creatures might look in upon me--and had stood gazing out for a moment.
"Shall we go for a little turn?" I said.
"I should like it very much," she answered. "I will go and put on my bonnet
at once."
In a minute or two she looked in again, all ready. I rose, laid aside my
Plato, and went with her. We turned our steps along the edge of the down,
and descended upon the breakwater, where we seated ourselves upon the same
spot where in the darkness I had heard the voices of Joe and Agnes. What a
different night it was from that! The sea lay as quiet as if it could not
move for the moonlight that lay upon it. The glory over it was so mighty in
its peacefulness, that the wild element beneath was afraid to toss itself
even with the motions of its natural unrest. The moon was like the face of
a saint before which the stormy people has grown dumb. The rocks stood up
solid and dark in the universal aether, and the pulse of the ocean throbbed
against them with a lapping gush, soft as the voice of a passionate child
soothed into shame of its vanished petulance.
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