ek to hold back the forces which drain the fens, and build
the bridges, and make the desert blossom as the rose, which give liberty
and preserve life, the good end was sure and near, whatever of rebellion
and disorder and treachery intervened. This was the larger, graver
issue; but they felt a spring in the blood, and their hearts were
leaping, because of the thought that soon they would clasp hands again
with all from which they had been exiled.

"Say, Saadat, think of it: a bed with four feet, and linen sheets,
and sleeping till any time in the morning, and, If you please, sir,
breakfast's on the table.' Say, it's great, and we're in it!"

David smiled. "Thee did very well, friend, without such luxuries. Thee
is not skin and bone."

Lacey mopped his forehead. "Well, I've put on a layer or two since
the relief. It's being scared that takes the flesh off me. I never was
intended for the 'stricken field.' Poetry and the hearth-stone was my
real vocation--and a bit of silver mining to blow off steam with," he
added with a chuckle.

David laughed and tapped his arm. "That is an old story now, thy
cowardice. Thee should be more original.

"It's worth not being original, Saadat, to hear you thee and thou me
as you used to do. It's like old times--the oldest, first times. You've
changed a lot, Saadat."

"Not in anything that matters, I hope."

"Not in anything that matters to any one that matters. To me it's the
same as it ever was, only more so. It isn't that, for you are you. But
you've had disappointment, trouble, hard nuts to crack, and all you
could do to escape the rocks being rolled down the Egyptian hill onto
you; and it's left its mark."

"Am I grown so different?"

Lacey's face shone under the look that was turned towards him. "Say,
Saadat, you're the same old red sandstone; but I missed the thee and
thou. I sort of hankered after it; it gets me where I'm at home with
myself."

David laughed drily. "Well, perhaps I've missed something in you. Thee
never says now--not since thee went south a year ago, 'Well, give my
love to the girls.' Something has left its mark, friend," he added
teasingly; for his spirits were boyish to-day; he was living in the
present. There had gone from his eyes and from the lines of his figure
the melancholy which Hylda had remarked when he was in England.

"Well, now, I never noticed," rejoined Lacey. "That's got me. Looks as
if I wasn't as friendly as I used to be, doesn't it?