philosopher?' said Stuart, inquisitively.

'Probably. Don't I look like one?'

He laughed again, with an unequivocal compliment in his bright
eyes. He was a handsome fellow, and a gentleman from head to
foot. So far at least as manners can make it.

'I do not judge from appearances. Do you care to know what I
judge from?'

'Your judgment cannot have been worth much just now,' said
Wych Hazel, shaking her head. 'But I am willing to hear what
led it astray.'

'What led it,--not astray,--was your calm declining of all but
true words of service.'

'O, had you gone back _there?_' she said. 'I think it takes very
little philosophy to decline what one does not want.'

'Evidently. But how came you not to want what everybody else
wants? There is the philosophy, you see. If you bring all
things down to bare truth, you will be Diogenes in his tub
presently.'

' "Bare truth!" '--said the girl. 'How people say that, as if
truth were only a lay figure!'

'But think how disagreeable truth would often be, if it were
not draped! Could you stand it? I beg pardon! I mean, not you,
but other people!'

'I _have_ stood it pretty often,' said the girl with a grave
gesture of her head.

'Impossible! But did you believe that it was truth?'

'Too self-evident to be doubted!'

Stuart laughed, again with a very unfeigned tribute of
pleasure or admiration in his face. 'It is a disagreeable
truth,' said he, 'that that is not a good sandwich. Permit me
to supply its place with something else. Here is cake, and
nothing beside that I can see; will you have a piece of cake?
It is said to be a feminine taste.'

'No, not any cake,' said Wych Hazel, her eyes searching the
brook shadows. 'But I will have another sandwich, Mr.
Nightingale--if there is one. At least, if there is more than
one!'

'Ah,' said Stuart, 'you shall have it, and you shall not know
the state of the basket. Those two people have so much to talk
about, they have no time to eat!' And he took another sandwich
himself.

'Is that old woman in the cottage a friend of yours?'

'I never saw her before the other day.'

'She lost no time! A little garrulous, isn't she? I made
acquaintance there one day when I went in to light a cigar. I
have a mind to ask you to give me the distinction I am ready
to claim, of being your oldest acquaintance in these parts. I
think I shall claim it yet. Let me look at the state of your
hook.'

They dropped their lines in the brook ag