ry--a woman old enough to be my mother, who took
care of me when I was a child at Tadmor. She stopped me one morning,
on my way to fish in the river. 'Amelius,' she said, 'don't go to
the fishing-house; Mellicent is waiting for you.' I stared at her in
astonishment. She held up her finger at me: 'Take care, you foolish boy!
You are drifting into a false position as fast as you can. Have you no
suspicion of what is going on?' I looked all round me, in search of what
was going on. Nothing out of the common was to be seen anywhere. 'What
can you possibly mean?' I asked. 'You will only laugh at me, if I tell
you,' she said. I promised not to laugh. She too looked all round her,
as if she was afraid of somebody being near enough to hear us; and then
she let out the secret. 'Amelius, ask for a holiday--and leave us for a
while. Mellicent is in love with you.'"

CHAPTER 4

Amelius looked at his companions, in some doubt whether they would
preserve their gravity at this critical point in his story. They both
showed him that his apprehensions were well founded. He was a little
hurt, and he instantly revealed it. "I own to my shame that I burst out
laughing myself," he said. "But you two gentlemen are older and wiser
than I am. I didn't expect to find you just as ready to laugh at poor
Miss Mellicent as I was."

Mr. Hethcote declined to be reminded of his duties as a middle-aged
gentleman in this backhanded manner. "Gently, Amelius! You can't expect
to persuade us that a laughable thing is not a thing to be laughed at.
A woman close on forty who falls in love with a young fellow of
twenty-one--"

"Is a laughable circumstance," Rufus interposed. "Whereas a man of forty
who fancies a young woman of twenty-one is all in the order of Nature.
The men have settled it so. But why the women are to give up so much
sooner than the men is a question, sir, on which I have long wished to
hear the sentiments of the women themselves."

Mr. Hethcote dismissed the sentiments of the women with a wave of his
hand. "Let us hear the rest of it, Amelius. Of course you went on to the
fishing-house? And of course you found Miss Mellicent there?"

"She came to the door to meet me, much as usual," Amelius resumed, "and
suddenly checked herself in the act of shaking hands with me. I can only
suppose she saw something in my face that startled her. How it happened,
I can't say; but I felt my good spirits forsake me the moment I found
myself in h