gladness, and came quickly forward to meet him. Her hand was a funny little tanned thing to be shaking his hard paw.
Just what happened during lunch he could never recall, except that his host's hands trembled slightly, and that he himself could look at Helen over a bowl of poppies,—"astonishing how late they lingered in this salt air," remarked the scholar,—and that he willingly did most of the talking, when he found that to a pair of shining eyes his two years of sordid knocking about appeared rich as an Odyssey. Once, when he happened to speak of a burial at sea, the eyes were troubled; but Mr. Powell, pricking up his ears, demanded particulars. Then came a tedium of sitting about while the scholar talked, kindly but feebly. At last, however, he declared:—
"Helen has promised to show you about. I 'll not spoil your young enjoyment by going.—No, no," he chirped, as Archer would have feigned to protest, "I'm not well to-day. And to tell the truth, Mr. Archer, I cannot care so much for nature as I did. I see the
