s envy the men who break stones and sit on those nice little heaps
all day wearin' spectacles. I'd infinitely rather break stones than
clean out poultry runs, or feed the cows, or--"

Here Rachel came up from the lower garden with a book in her hand.

"What's that book?" said Ridley, when she had shaken hands.

"It's Gibbon," said Rachel as she sat down.

"_The_ _Decline_ _and_ _Fall_ _of_ _the_ _Roman_ _Empire_?" said Mrs.
Thornbury. "A very wonderful book, I know. My dear father was always
quoting it at us, with the result that we resolved never to read a
line."

"Gibbon the historian?" enquired Mrs. Flushing. "I connect him with
some of the happiest hours of my life. We used to lie in bed and read
Gibbon--about the massacres of the Christians, I remember--when we were
supposed to be asleep. It's no joke, I can tell you, readin' a great
big book, in double columns, by a night-light, and the light that comes
through a chink in the door. Then there were the moths--tiger moths,
yellow moths, and horrid cockchafers. Louisa, my sister, would have the
window open. I wanted it shut. We fought every night of our lives over
that window. Have you ever seen a moth dyin' in a night-light?" she
enquired.

Again there was an interruption. Hewet and Hirst appeared at the
drawing-room window and came up to the tea-table.

Rachel's heart beat hard. She was conscious of an extraordinary
intensity in everything, as though their presence stripped some
cover off the surface of things; but the greetings were remarkably
commonplace.

"Excuse me," said Hirst, rising from his chair directly he had sat down.
He went into the drawing-room, and returned with a cushion which he
placed carefully upon his seat.

"Rheumatism," he remarked, as he sat down for the second time.

"The result of the dance?" Helen enquired.

"Whenever I get at all run down I tend to be rheumatic," Hirst stated.
He bent his wrist back sharply. "I hear little pieces of chalk grinding
together!"

Rachel looked at him. She was amused, and yet she was respectful; if
such a thing could be, the upper part of her face seemed to laugh, and
the lower part to check its laughter.

Hewet picked up the book that lay on the ground.

"You like this?" he asked in an undertone.

"No, I don't like it," she replied. She had indeed been trying all
the afternoon to read it, and for some reason the glory which she had
perceived at first had faded, and, read as she would, she