etween his hands, and Mrs. Narracombe gazed at him. He was the
only son of a late professor of chemistry, but people found a certain
lordliness in one who was often so sublimely unconscious of them.

"Is there a stream where we could bathe?"

"There's the strame at the bottom of the orchard, but sittin' down you'll
not be covered!"

"How deep?"

"Well, 'tis about a foot and a half, maybe."

"Oh! That'll do fine. Which way?"

"Down the lane, through the second gate on the right, an' the pool's by
the big apple tree that stands by itself. There's trout there, if you
can tickle them."

"They're more likely to tickle us!"

Mrs. Narracombe smiled. "There'll be the tea ready when you come back."

The pool, formed by the damming of a rock, had a sandy bottom; and the
big apple tree, lowest in the orchard, grew so close that its boughs
almost overhung the water; it was in leaf, and all but in flower-its
crimson buds just bursting. There was not room for more than one at a
time in that narrow bath, and Ashurst waited his turn, rubbing his knee
and gazing at the wild meadow, all rocks and thorn trees and feld
flowers, with a grove of beeches beyond, raised up on a flat mound.
Every bough was swinging in the wind, every spring bird calling, and a
slanting sunlight dappled the grass. He thought of Theocritus, and the
river Cherwell, of the moon, and the maiden with the dewy eyes; of so
many things that he seemed to think of nothing; and he felt absurdly
happy.

2

During a late and sumptuous tea with eggs to it, cream and jam, and thin,
fresh cakes touched with saffron, Garton descanted on the Celts. It was
about the period of the Celtic awakening, and the discovery that there
was Celtic blood about this family had excited one who believed that he
was a Celt himself. Sprawling on a horse hair chair, with a hand-made
cigarette dribbling from the corner of his curly lips, he had been
plunging his cold pin-points of eyes into Ashurst's and praising the
refinement of the Welsh. To come out of Wales into England was like the
change from china to earthenware! Frank, as a d---d Englishman, had not
of course perceived the exquisite refinement and emotional capacity of
that Welsh girl! And, delicately stirring in the dark mat of his still
wet hair, he explained how exactly she illustrated the writings of the
Welsh bard Morgan-ap-Something in the twelfth century.

Ashurst, full length on the horsehair sofa, a