Victoria Bennett blushed again and decided not to say anything this time. Instead she looked around her and saw that it was indeed a beautiful day. Both she and her friend, Penny Collins were taking a short cut across the campus of the small California girls' college where they were students and roommates. It would have been hard to find a more perfect setting for a college, high up on cliffs that jutted starkly from the blue Pacific below. The whole campus was set in a forest of feathery eucalyptus trees dotted with occasional patches of dwarf oak. Innumerable small paths criss-crossed through the trees and the two girls were walking on one of them now, heading towards their next class in one of the scattered clusters of buildings. The campus was broken up into many small sections so that it would have a rural, almost wild air instead of the usual congested concrete vistas of the average modern college campus.

The month was November and the summer heat was finally over. Victoria thought to herself that the winters here were usually much nicer since it never really did get that cold and the fresh autumn air swept away the moist summer haze and let one see practically forever. The two girls were approaching the top of a small rise now and the ocean came into view, a deep glittering blue in the clear air with the horizon etched sharply against the sky. Looking in the other direction, inland, the delighted blonde girl could clearly make out the distant mountains tumbling over one another in wave after wave of muted purples and blues. Further down the coast it was possible to see the surf crumbling in brilliant white foam against the base of the ocher cliffs. Blue and white and brown and violet and green, and the delicious feel of the tangy salt air sweeping in from the sea, perhaps from as far away as Japan… Victoria's reverie was shattered by a delighted whoop from Penny.