She awoke at dawn, and rose at once, remembering that she had not had a walk since leaving the ship. No wonder these three long days of bodily inactivity and mental turmoil¹ had played havoc² with her nerves. She would walk for hours and then return and write to Tay, telling him that she would marry him on the day the next American steamer arrived, but begging him to make no attempt to see her until then. It was her duty to devote the few intervening days to her mother, as well as to prepare her by degrees for the staggering information that she intended to marry an American and desert her country. But if she could convince the old lady that the planets had reckoned with the United States of America, she should, if not reconcile her to a son-in-law of a race she despised, at least leave her with unbroken faith in a science full of compensations.

She went out to the kitchen and brewed³ herself a cup of coffee, then started for a brisk walk round the island. The night’s refreshing⁴ sleep, the strong drink, the awakening⁵ tropic morning, the peace of mind that follows a momentous⁶ and final decision, made her feel as if dancing on ether, almost as happy as if Tay were beside her. The sea was as blue as liquid sapphire⁷, save near the shore, where it was as green as the beryl stone. The cloud that descends⁸ the slopes of Nevis at nightfall had rolled itself upward and floated lightly above the cone⁹. In the distance were the outlines of other islands; and everywhere the royal palms with their long bladelike leaves rattling¹⁰ in the rising trade-wind that gives lightness to Nevis air on the hottest day, the bright green

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