stones? Mrs. Emlyn came across the lawn and joined him, seating
herself also on the bank. Mrs. Emlyn was an exceedingly clever woman:
nevertheless she was not formidable,--on the contrary, pleasing; and
though the ladies in the neighbourhood said 'she talked like a book,'
the easy gentleness of her voice carried off that offence.

"I suppose, Mr. Chillingly," said she, "I ought to apologize for
my husband's invitation to what must seem to you so frivolous an
entertainment as a child's party. But when Mr. Emlyn asked you to come
to us this evening, he was not aware that Clemmy had also invited her
young friends. He had looked forward to rational conversation with you
on his own favourite studies."

"It is not so long since I left school, but that I prefer a half holiday
to lessons, even from a tutor so pleasant as Mr. Emlyn,--

"'Ah, happy years,--once more who would not be a boy!'"

"Nay," said Mrs. Emlyn, with a grave smile. "Who that had started so
fairly as Mr. Chillingly in the career of man would wish to go back and
resume a place among boys?"

"But, my dear Mrs. Emlyn, the line I quoted was wrung from the heart of
a man who had already outstripped all rivals in the race-ground he had
chosen, and who at that moment was in the very Maytime of youth and of
fame. And if such a man at such an epoch in his career could sigh to 'be
once more a boy,' it must have been when he was thinking of the boy's
half holiday, and recoiling from the task work he was condemned to learn
as man."

"The line you quote is, I think, from 'Childe Harold,' and surely
you would not apply to mankind in general the sentiment of a poet so
peculiarly self-reflecting (if I may use that expression), and in whom
sentiment is often so morbid."

"You are right, Mrs. Emlyn," said Kenelm, ingenuously. "Still a boy's
half holiday is a very happy thing; and among mankind in general
there must be many who would be glad to have it back again,--Mr. Emlyn
himself, I should think."

"Mr. Emlyn has his half holiday now. Do you not see him standing just
outside the window? Do you not hear him laughing? He is a child again
in the mirth of his children. I hope you will stay some time in the
neighbourhood; I am sure you and he will like each other. And it is such
a rare delight to him to get a scholar like yourself to talk to."

"Pardon me, I am not a scholar; a very noble title that, and not to be
given to a lazy trifler on the surface of book-lor