"2, INTBODUCTOBY. 



Two seasons in London, followed by gay autumns at water- 

 ing-places, had made sad havoc with the health of Fanny 

 Dring, and her pale face and attenuated figure, as she stood 

 in the large bay window gazing wistfully on the lovely land- 

 scape, attracted her mother's anxious observation. 



" I am very glad we decided to come here," she said, as 

 she gathered up some letters and prepared to leave the room 

 to write the answers ; "I am certain that this air suits 

 Fanny. It did not seem to take any effect upon her the 

 first fortnight ; but since Christmas she has decidedly im- 

 proved. Ere summer comes my child will be bright and gay 

 again !" 



As her mother closed the door, Fanny's eye still dwelt on 

 the outward view. She was not gazing on the beach with 

 its small complement of pedestrians, nor upon the waters of 

 the Severn, with which the fresh tide of the channel was 

 now striving, nor yet upon the grey line of the Welsh 

 coast and the scarcely less faint outline of the flat and steep 

 Holmes ; but her eye was fixed with a yearning look of 

 inquiry upon the distant thread where sky and water meet, 

 and that look seemed to ask, " What is there in the future 

 for me? Is there rest? for my spirit is weary of all that 

 has been." 



She turned slowly as her mother's footsteps receded, and 

 addressed Esther. 



" My mother is quite mistaken," she said gloomily. " It 

 is not the air of Clevedon that has done me good. True, I 

 am able to walk more, and I have enjoyed our strolls of late ; 

 but that is only because you found things constantly to interest 

 me. Every common shell stranded on the coast, the weed in 

 the tide-pools and the slimy things playing hide-and-seek 

 among it, each little belated flower, and every insect crawling 

 on the face of the cliff, formed an object of interest and 

 pleasure seen through your eyes. But now that you are 

 leaving us, my life will become dreary and aimless again, and 



