The shore was hers, for her life, and it was rock-bound, This knob
she had espied from her windows; and, indeed, had been thinking of it for
the last week, as a place appropriate to solitude and Shelley. She had
stood on it before, and had stretched her arms with enthusiasm toward the
just-visible mountains of Arran. On that occasion the weather, perhaps,
had been cool; but now a blazing sun was overhead, and when she had been
seated half a minute, and "Queen Mab" had been withdrawn from her pocket,
she found that it would not do. It would not do even with the canopy she
could make for herself with her parasol. So she stood up and looked about
herself for shade; for shade in some spot in which she could still look
out upon "her dear wide ocean with its glittering smile." For it was thus
that she would talk about the mouth of the Clyde. Shelter near her there
was none. The scrubby trees lay nearly half a mile to the right, and up
the hill too. She had once clambered down to the actual shore, and might
do so again. But she doubted that there would be shelter even there; and
the clambering up on that former occasion had been a nuisance, and would
be a worse nuisance now.
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