"I
shall be most grateful."
'She turned in silence and left the cave. The youth followed.
'She was barefooted, and her pretty brown feet went catlike over the
sharp stones, as she led the way down a rocky path to the shore.
Her garments were scanty and torn, and her hair blew tangled in the
wind. She seemed about five-and-twenty, lithe and small. Her long
fingers kept clutching and pulling nervously at her skirts as she
went. Her face was very gray in complexion, and very worn, but
delicately formed, and smooth-skinned. Her thin nostrils were
tremulous as eyelids, and her lips, whose curves were faultless, had
no colour to give sign of indwelling blood. What her eyes were like
he could not see, for she had never lifted the delicate films of her
eyelids.
'At the foot of the cliff they came upon a little hut leaning
against it, and having for its inner apartment a natural hollow
within it. Smoke was spreading over the face of the rock, and the
grateful odour of food gave hope to the hungry student. His guide
opened the door of the cottage; he followed her in, and saw a woman
bending over a fire in the middle of the floor. On the fire lay a
large fish boiling. The daughter spoke a few words, and the mother
turned and welcomed the stranger. She had an old and very wrinkled,
but honest face, and looked troubled. She dusted the only chair in
the cottage, and placed it for him by the side of the fire, opposite
the one window, whence he saw a little patch of yellow sand over
which the spent waves spread themselves out listlessly.
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