ws strenuous exercise, when he heard a hail and his own name
called. It was no lady, no fairy, but young Ralph Morton, an irruption of
miserable masculine prose. Heartily wishing him abed with the rest of
mankind, Richard rowed in and jumped ashore. Ralph immediately seized his
arm, saying that he desired earnestly to have a talk with him, and
dragged the Magnetic Youth from his water-dreams, up and down the wet
mown grass. That he had to say seemed to be difficult of utterance, and
Richard, though he barely listened, soon had enough of his old rival's
gladness at seeing him, and exhibited signs of impatience; whereat Ralph,
as one who branches into matter somewhat foreign to his mind, but of
great human interest and importance, put the question to him:

"I say, what woman's name do you like best?"

"I don't know any," quoth Richard, indifferently. "Why are you out so
early?"

In answer to this, Ralph suggested that the name of Mary might be
considered a pretty name.

Richard agreed that it might be; the housekeeper at Raynham, half the
women cooks, and all the housemaids enjoyed that name; the name of Mary
was equivalent for women at home.

"Yes, I know," said Ralph. "We have lots of Marys. It's so common. Oh! I
don't like Mary best. What do you think?"

Richard thought it just like another.

"Do you know," Ralph continued, throwing off the mask and plunging into
the subject, "I'd do anything on earth for some names--one or two. It's
not Mary, nor Lucy. Clarinda's pretty, but it's like a novel. Claribel, I
like. Names beginning with 'Cl' I prefer. The 'Cl's' are always gentle
and lovely girls you would die for! Don't you think so?"

Richard had never been acquainted with any of them to inspire that
emotion. Indeed these urgent appeals to his fancy in feminine names at
five o'clock in the morning slightly surprised him, though he was but
half awake to the outer world. By degrees he perceived that Ralph was
changed. Instead of the lusty boisterous boy, his rival in manly
sciences, who spoke straightforwardly and acted up to his speech, here
was an abashed and blush-persecuted youth, who sued piteously for a
friendly ear wherein to pour the one idea possessing him. Gradually, too,
Richard apprehended that Ralph likewise was on the frontiers of the Realm
of Mystery, perhaps further toward it than he himself was; and then, as
by a sympathetic stroke, was revealed to him the wonderful beauty and
depth of meaning in