In the Roar of the Sea

The old rector seated himself on the bench beside her, and he also leaned back against the red-brick, gold-and-gray-lichen-spotted wall, and looked into the distance before him, waiting till his daughterwas ready to speak, not, perhaps, sorry to have a little rest first, for he was overtired. Had Judith notbeen absorbed in her ball-play with the guelder-rose bunch she would have noticed his haggardappearance, the green hue about his mouth, the sunken eyes, the beaded brow. But she was countingthe rebounds of her ball, bent on sustaining her play as long as was possible to her. She formed a charming picture, fresh and pure, and had the old man not been overtired, he wouldhave thought so with a throb of parental pride. She was a child in size, slender in build, delicate in bone, with face and hands of porcelaintransparency and whiteness, with, moreover, that incomparable complexion only seen in the BritishIsles, and then only with red-gold hair