way around. There was a puzzled look as well as mere surprise
in her pretty face.

"Father," she said earnestly, "you have spoken more than once of living
as if in a dream. Perhaps you will wonder when I tell you that I
experience something of that sort now. Strange though this place seems,
I have an unaccountable feeling that it is not absolutely new to
me--that I have seen it before."

"I do not wonder, dear one," he replied, "for the drawings that surround
this chamber were the handiwork of your dear mother, and they decorated
the walls of your own nursery when you were a little child at your
mother's knee. For over ten long years they have surrounded me and kept
your faces fresh in my memory--though, truth to tell, it needed no such
reminders to do that. Come, let us examine them."

It was pleasant to see the earnest face of Winnie as she
half-recognised and strove to recall the memories of early childhood in
that singular cavern. It was also a sight worth seeing--the countenance
of Nigel, as well as that of the hermit, while they watched and admired
her eager, puzzled play of feature, and it was the most amazing sight of
all to see the all but superhuman joy of Moses as he held the lamp and
listened to facts regarding the past of his beloved master which were
quite new to him--for the hermit spoke as openly about his past domestic
affairs as if he and Winnie had been quite alone.

"He either forgets that we are present, or counts us as part of his
family," thought Nigel with a feeling of satisfaction.

"What a dear comoonicative man!" thought Moses, with unconcealed
pleasure.

"Come now, let us ascend to the observatory," said the hermit, when all
the things in the library had been examined. "There has been damage done
there, I know; besides, there is a locket there which belonged to your
mother. I left it by mistake one day when I went up to arrange the
mirrors, and in the hurry of leaving forgot to return for it. Indeed,
one of my main objects in re-visiting my old home was to fetch that
locket away. It contains a lock of hair and one of those miniatures
which men used to paint before photography drove such work off the
field."

Winnie was nothing loth to follow, for she had reached a romantic period
of life, and it seemed to her that to be led through mysterious caves
and dark galleries in the very heart of a still active volcano by her
own father--the hermit of Rakata--was the very embodiment of romanc