, and he, too, sighed.

The old lady caught the sound, and with a pretty little air of
determination she called up a smile to her face.

'Shall we go into the house, or shall we sit awhile in the garden? It is
almost too fine a day to be indoors.'

'Oh, let us sit out, please,' said Ericson. He had driven the sorrow
from his voice, and its tones were almost joyous. 'Is the old
garden-seat still there?'

'Why, of course it is. I sit there always in fine weather.'

They wandered round to the back by a path that skirted the house, a path
all broidered with rose-bushes. At the back, the garden was very large,
beginning with a spacious stretch of lawn that ran right up to the wide
French windows. There were several noble old trees which stood sentinel
over this part of the garden, and beneath one of these trees, a very
ancient elm, was the sturdy garden-seat which the Dictator remembered so
well.

'How many pleasant fairy tales you have told me under this tree, aunt,'
said the Dictator, as soon as they had sat down. 'I should like to lie
on the grass again and listen to your voice, and dream of Njal, and
Grettir, and Sigurd, as I used to do.'

'It is your turn to tell me stories now,' said the old lady. 'Not fairy
stories, but true ones.'

The Dictator laughed. 'You know all that there is to tell,' he said.
'What my letters didn't say you must have found from the newspapers.'

'But I want to know more than you wrote, more than the newspapers
gave--everything.'

'In fact, you want a full, true, and particular account of the late
remarkable revolution in Gloria, which ended in the deposition and exile
of the alien tyrant. My dear aunt, it would take a couple of weeks at
the least computation to do the theme justice.'

'I am sure that I shouldn't tire of listening,' said Miss Ericson, and
there were tears in her bright old eyes and a tremor in her brave old
voice as she said so.

The Dictator laughed, but he stooped and kissed the old lady again very
affectionately.

'Why, you would be as bad as I used to be,' he said. 'I never was tired
of your _sagas_, and when one came to an end I wanted a new one at once,
or at least the old one over again.'

He looked away from her and all around the garden as he spoke. The winds
and rains and suns of all those years had altered it but little.

'We talk of the shortness of life,' he said; 'but sometimes life seems
quite long. Think of the years and years since I was a li