l drink your health in a little whiskey," he replied with alacrity.

"Quite right," Cardington commented, producing a bottle of Scotch. "I
hope you 'll find that this has the true Calvinistic flavour. And
here's to you likewise. May you yet discover the length, the depth,
and the uses of all the canals of Mars." Over the rim of his glass his
eyes began to brighten in a manner which his guest already knew to be a
prophecy of something good. "That was an excellent jest of the
bishop's you told me of yesterday, calling you Peter when he handed you
the keys of the door that leads to heaven. Now what did you say in
reply?"

"Nothing," Leigh confessed. "He didn't give me fair warning of what
was coming."

"Then you lost the opportunity of your life. If you had only said,
'Thank you, my Lord!' Even a Yankee bishop would have had no objection
to being my-lorded, you know. Ah, that would have been the retort
courteous, and the story is incomplete without it. By your kind
permission I shall tell it with that addendum."

"A footnote by Professor Cardington," Leigh suggested.

"No, no, not at all. I 'll work it into the text as your own. The
story must go down in history along with the classic jest in regard to
the position of the statue's outstretched palm. The bishop told you
that, no doubt, anticipating my own good offices."

"It may interest you to know," he went on, as they began to descend the
stairs, "that you are to meet a very charming young lady to-night.
Miss Wycliffe is a very remarkable young woman in some respects. Have
you yet had the pleasure of making her acquaintance?"

"What is she like?" Leigh asked, wondering whether the answer would
suggest in any way the young woman he had met the morning of his
arrival.

"I shall not allow my enthusiasm to betray me into an inadequate
description," Cardington declared. "I could no more make the subject
clear to you than you could explain to me the _n_th degree of _x+z_, if
there is any such expression in algebra, which I should n't be
surprised to discover is the case."

"Then I shall have to possess my soul in patience," Leigh answered,
with apparent indifference.

When they emerged from the shadow of the Hall, and plunged between the
lines of maples, they were obliged to go in single file, for the
narrowness of the way. The young mathematician glanced at the last
melancholy glow of the sunset which spread out in a faint, fan-shaped
aurora abov