A light haze
rose and obscured the opposite islands. Something of the tender
melancholy of autumn, though it was late June, toned down the aspect of
the before brilliant landscape. A lark rose swiftly from its nest in an
adjacent meadow, and, soaring higher and higher, poured from its tiny
throat a cascade of delicious melody. The midnight sun no longer shone
at midnight; his face smiled with a sobered serenity through the faint
early mists of approaching morning.
CHAPTER II.
"Viens donc--je te chanterai des chansons que les esprits des
cimetieres m'ont apprises!"
MATURIN.
"Baffled!" he exclaimed, with a slight vexed laugh, as the boat vanished
from his sight. "By a woman, too! Who would have thought it?"
Who would have thought it, indeed! Sir Philip Bruce-Errington, Baronet,
the wealthy and desirable parti for whom many match-making mothers had
stood knee-deep in the chilly though sparkling waters of society,
ardently plying rod and line with patient persistence, vainly hoping to
secure him as a husband for one of their highly proper and passionless
daughters,--he, the admired, long-sought-after "eligible," was suddenly
rebuffed, flouted--by whom? A stray princess, or a peasant.
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