he limestone dust, and the vapor of heat palpitated over the fields.
Lucian showed his _Confessions_ to his father, and began to talk of the
beautiful bits he had already found. Mr. Taylor knew the book well--had
read it many years before. Indeed he was almost as difficult to surprise
as that character in Daudet, who had one formula for all the chances of
life, and when he saw the drowned Academician dragged out of the river,
merely observed "_J'ai vu tout ca._" Mr. Taylor the parson, as his
parishioners called him, had read the fine books and loved the hills
and woods, and now knew no more of pleasant or sensational surprises.
Indeed the living was much depreciated in value, and his own private
means were reduced almost to vanishing point, and under such
circumstances the great style loses many of its finer savors. He was very
fond of Lucian, and cheered by his return, but in the evening he would be
a sad man again, with his head resting on one hand, and eyes reproaching
sorry fortune.

Nobody called out "Here's your master with Master Lucian; you can get tea
ready," when the pony jogged up to the front door. His mother had been
dead a year, and a cousin kept house. She was a respectable person called
Deacon, of middle age, and ordinary standards; and, consequently, there
was cold mutton on the table. There was a cake, but nothing of flour,
baked in ovens, would rise at Miss Deacon's evocation. Still, the meal
was laid in the beloved "parlor," with the view of hills and valleys and
climbing woods from the open window, and the old furniture was still
pleasant to see, and the old books in the shelves had many memories. One
of the most respected of the armchairs had become weak in the castors and
had to be artfully propped up, but Lucian found it very comfortable after
the hard forms. When tea was over he went out and strolled in the garden
and orchards, and looked over the stile down into the brake, where
foxgloves and bracken and broom mingled with the hazel undergrowth, where
he knew of secret glades and untracked recesses, deep in the woven green,
the cabinets for many years of his lonely meditations. Every path about
his home, every field and hedgerow had dear and friendly memories for
him; and the odor of the meadowsweet was better than the incense steaming
in the sunshine. He loitered, and hung over the stile till the far-off
woods began to turn purple, till the white mists were wreathing in the
valley.

Day after