wered.

"Have you then?"

"Yes," he nodded complacently, "oh yes, I've found it."

"Are you--sure?"

"Quite sure!"

"Arcadia!" she repeated, wrinkling her brows, "what is Arcadia
and--where?"

"Arcadia," answered Bellew, watching the smoke rise up from his pipe,
with a dreamy eye, "Arcadia is the--Promised Land,--the Land that
everyone tries to find, sometime or other, and may be--anywhere."

"And how came you to--find it?"

"By the most fortunate chance in the world."

"Tell me," said Anthea, taking a wisp of hay, and beginning to plait it
in dexterous, brown fingers, "tell me how you found it."

"Why then you must know, in the first place," he began in his slow, even
voice, "that it is a place I have sought for in all my wanderings, and I
have been pretty far afield,--but I sought it so long, and so vainly,
that I began to think it was like the El Dorado of the old Adventurers,
and had never existed at all."

"Yes?" said Anthea, busy with her plaiting.

"But, one day,--Fate, or Chance, or Destiny,--or their benevolent
spirit, sent a certain square-shouldered Waggoner to show me the way,
and, after him, a very small Porges,--bless him!--to lead me into this
wonderful Arcadia."

"Oh, I see!" nodded Anthea, very intent upon her plaiting.

"But there is something more," said Bellew.

"Oh?" said Anthea.

"Shall I tell you?"

"If--it is--very interesting."

"Well then, in this delightful land there is a castle, grim, embattled,
and very strong."

"A castle?" said Anthea, glancing up suddenly.

"The Castle of Heart's Desire."

"Oh!" said she, and gave all her attention to her plaiting again.

"And so," continued Bellew, "I am waiting, very patiently, until, in her
own good time, she who rules within, shall open the gate to me, or--bid
me go away."

Into Bellew's voice had crept a thrill no one had ever heard there
before; he leaned nearer to her, and his dreamy eyes were keen now, and
eager. And she, though she saw nothing of all this, yet, being a woman,
knew it was there, of course, and, for that very reason, looked
resolutely away. Wherefore, once again, Bellew heartily wished that
sunbonnets had never been invented.

So there was silence while Anthea stared away across the golden
corn-fields, yet saw nothing of them, and Bellew looked upon those
slender, capable fingers, that had faltered in their plaiting and
stopped. And thus, upon the silence there broke a sudden voice shrill
with int