aid his store of knowledge, wit, and
scintillating philosophy were simply wonderful, you know.

That summer the Viewpoint Inn was crowded with guests. So, on Saturday
nights, there were extra cans of tomatoes, and sirloin steak, instead
of "rounds," in the hermit's basket.

Now you have the material allegations in the case. So, make way for
Romance.

Evidently the hermit expected a visitor. He carefully combed his
long hair and parted his apostolic beard. When the ninety-eight-cent
alarm-clock on a stone shelf announced the hour of five he picked up his
gunny-sacking skirts, brushed them carefully, gathered an oaken staff,
and strolled slowly into the thick woods that surrounded the hermitage.

He had not long to wait. Up the faint pathway, slippery with its carpet
of pine-needles, toiled Beatrix, youngest and fairest of the famous
Trenholme sisters. She was all in blue from hat to canvas pumps, varying
in tint from the shade of the tinkle of a bluebell at daybreak on a
spring Saturday to the deep hue of a Monday morning at nine when the
washerwoman has failed to show up.

Beatrix dug her cerulean parasol deep into the pine-needles and sighed.
The hermit, on the _q. t._, removed a grass burr from the ankle of
one sandalled foot with the big toe of his other one. She blued--and
almost starched and ironed him--with her cobalt eyes.

"It must be so nice," she said in little, tremulous gasps, "to be a
hermit, and have ladies climb mountains to talk to you."

The hermit folded his arms and leaned against a tree. Beatrix, with a
sigh, settled down upon the mat of pine-needles like a bluebird upon her
nest. The hermit followed suit; drawing his feet rather awkwardly under
his gunny-sacking.

"It must be nice to be a mountain," said he, with ponderous lightness,
"and have angels in blue climb up you instead of flying over you."

"Mamma had neuralgia," said Beatrix, "and went to bed, or I couldn't
have come. It's dreadfully hot at that horrid old inn. But we hadn't
the money to go anywhere else this summer."

"Last night," said the hermit, "I climbed to the top of that big rock
above us. I could see the lights of the inn and hear a strain or two of
the music when the wind was right. I imagined you moving gracefully in
the arms of others to the dreamy music of the waltz amid the fragrance
of flowers. Think how lonely I must have been!"

The youngest, handsomest, and poorest of the famous Trenholme sisters
sighed.