ushed with his exertions.

"Halloa, Beryl!" said he, and it seemed to me that the tone of
his greeting was not altogether a cordial one.

"Well, Jack, you are very hot."

"Yes, I was chasing a Cyclopides. He is very rare and seldom
found in the late autumn. What a pity that I should have missed
him!" He spoke unconcernedly, but his small light eyes glanced
incessantly from the girl to me.

"You have introduced yourselves, I can see."

"Yes. I was telling Sir Henry that it was rather late for him to
see the true beauties of the moor."

"Why, who do you think this is?"

"I imagine that it must be Sir Henry Baskerville."

"No, no," said I. "Only a humble commoner, but his friend. My
name is Dr. Watson."

A flush of vexation passed over her expressive face. "We have
been talking at cross purposes," said she.

"Why, you had not very much time for talk," her brother remarked
with the same questioning eyes.

"I talked as if Dr. Watson were a resident instead of being
merely a visitor," said she. "It cannot much matter to him
whether it is early or late for the orchids. But you will come
on, will you not, and see Merripit House?"

A short walk brought us to it, a bleak moorland house, once the
farm of some grazier in the old prosperous days, but now put into
repair and turned into a modern dwelling. An orchard surrounded
it, but the trees, as is usual upon the moor, were stunted and
nipped, and the effect of the whole place was mean and
melancholy. We were admitted by a strange, wizened, rusty-coated
old manservant, who seemed in keeping with the house. Inside,
however, there were large rooms furnished with an elegance in
which I seemed to recognize the taste of the lady. As I looked
from their windows at the interminable granite-flecked moor
rolling unbroken to the farthest horizon I could not but marvel
at what could have brought this highly educated man and this
beautiful woman to live in such a place.

"Queer spot to choose, is it not?" said he as if in answer to my
thought. "And yet we manage to make ourselves fairly happy, do we
not, Beryl?"

"Quite happy," said she, but there was no ring of conviction in
her words.

"I had a school," said Stapleton. "It was in the north country.
The work to a man of my temperament was mechanical and
uninteresting, but the privilege of living with youth, of helping
to mould those young minds, and of impressing them with one's own
character and ideals, was very dear