haffy--Mahaffy; one of the greatest scholars of the time;" and then he
was lost to external things.

Yes, Mr. Dale of The Dales, the head of an ancient house, the father of a
large family, forgot everything on earth except a certain disputed
passage in which he and Professor Mahaffy diametrically disagreed. He
continued to forget everything else, even when nurse rushed into the
room.

"Why, she has gone!" cried the good woman. "She ain't in her bed; and
what's more, she's been out of it for hours, and the window is open. Oh,
whatever has come to the child? Where in the world is she?"

Miss Tredgold looked terribly startled. Verena's face turned like a
sheet. Briar and Patty clasped each other's hands. Pen said to herself:

"This is the time for a good sort of child like me to do something."

Then a clatter of horse's hoofs was heard on the gravel outside, and a
stoutly built, rubicund man, on a very large horse, drew rein at the
front door.

"It's Farmer King!" cried Verena.

"Yes, it's Farmer King," said Pen.

"Penelope, be quiet," said her aunt.

The next moment the door was opened, and the parlor-maid said that Farmer
King had come and was anxious to see Mr. Dale and Miss Tredgold.

"Show him in here," said Miss Tredgold. "Henry, have the goodness to give
me that paper."

"But I---- My dear Sophia, I have not finished reading it. I don't agree
a bit with Mahaffy--not a bit. He takes the text in its literal meaning.
He ought to read it with the context. Now, there is not the slightest
manner of doubt that Plato meant----"

"Henry! Are you mad? Give me that paper."

It is to be regretted that Miss Tredgold snatched the _Spectator_ from
Mr. Dale's unwilling hand.

"Now, Henry, wake up," she said. "Pauline is lost, and Farmer King has
come to speak to us both on a matter of importance."

Just then Farmer King came into the room. Now, the Kings may have been
the humble retainers of the Dales for generations, but there was not the
slightest doubt that Farmer King made a far more imposing appearance at
that moment than did Mr. Dale of The Dales; for Mr. Dale stood up, thin,
bewildered, shivering, his mind in the past, his eyes consumed by a sort
of inward fire, but with no intelligence as far as present things were
concerned; and Farmer King was intensely wide awake, and, so to speak,
all there.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Dale," he said. "And I beg your pardon, miss. I
presume I am speaking to Miss Tredgol