's free heaven. I have had to get on
for years without my best and dearest old Daedalus--"

He did not finish his sentence. The sculptor had pressed him so
heartily to his breast that it fairly took away his breath.

Then suddenly he loosened his grasp, and, stepping back a pace, cast a
critical glance over the slight figure of his friend.

"Still just the same," he said, as though to himself; "but we must get
those Samson-like locks under the shears. You don't know your strongest
point, my dear boy, when you bury your round head in such a thicket.
And your full beard must come off. However, all that will come with
time. Tell me what has conjured you forth out of your primeval forests
into our tame art-city?"

He grasped the young man's arm, and led him around the house into the
little garden. Both were silent, and seemed to avoid looking at one
another, as though they had begun to feel ashamed of the extravagant
affection with which they had marked their reunion.

At the extreme end of the garden was an arbor overgrown with
honeysuckle; at its entrance stood sentry two potbellied Cupids in the
_rococco_ style, with little queues and all that--both of them painted
sky-blue from head to foot.

"It's easy to see whom one is visiting," said Felix, laughing. "'His
pig-tail hangs behind him,' or have you had it cut off?" Then, without
waiting for an answer: "But tell me, old fellow, how have you had the
heart to leave your poor Icarus all these terribly long years without a
sign of life on your part? Haven't any of the six or eight letters I
have written you--the last only a year ago from Chicago--"

The sculptor had turned away and buried his face in a bunch of
full-blown roses. He turned suddenly toward his friend, and said, with
a quick, lowering glance: "A sign of life! How do you know that I
_have_ lived these terribly long years? But let us drop all that. Come
and sit down here in the arbor, and now unpack your budget. A
circumnavigator like you must have brought all manner of things with
you that are entertaining and wonderful to dusty stay-at-homes like us.
When you went away from Kiel, we did not either of us think the earth
would turn so often before we looked each other in the face again."

"What shall I tell you?" asked the young man, and his delicate brow
contracted, "If my letters reached you, you have not lost the thread of
my story. As for all the details that belong to it, you knew me well
enough in