tress became
magnified into irritation, partly because of this secrecy, partly
because his mind, wearied by study, had not its most wholesome balance.

Jim Hogan at this time made overtures of renewed friendship to Caius.
Jim was the same as of old--athletic, quick-witted, large and strong,
with his freckled face still innocent of hair; the red brush stood up
over his unnaturally high forehead in such fashion as to suggest to the
imaginative eye that wreath of flame that in some old pictures is
displayed round the heads of villains in the infernal regions. Jim was
now the acknowledged leader of the young men of that part who were not
above certain low and mischievous practices to which Caius did not dream
of condescending. Caius repulsed the offer of friendship extended to
him.

The households with which his parents were friendly made great
merrymakings over his return. Dancing was forbidden, but games in which
maidens might be caught and kissed were not. Caius was not diverted; he
had not the good-nature to be in sympathy with the sort of hilarity
which was exacted from him.

CHAPTER VII.

"A SEA CHANGE."

In the procession of the swift-winged hours there is for every man one
and another which is big with fate, in that they bring him peculiar
opportunity to lose his life, and by that means find it. Such an hour
came now to Caius. The losing and finding of life is accomplished in
many ways: the first proffer of this kind which Time makes to us is
commonly a draught of the wine of joy, and happy is he who loses the
remembrance of self therein.

The hour which was so fateful for Caius came flying with the light winds
of August, which breathed over the sunny harvest fields and under the
deep dark shade of woods of fir and beech, waving the gray moss that
hung from trunk and branch, tossing the emerald ferns that grew in the
moss at the roots, and out again into light to catch the silver down of
thistles that grew by the red roadside and rustle their purple bloom;
then on the cliff, just touching the blue sea with the slightest ripple,
and losing themselves where sky and ocean met in indistinguishable azure
fold.

Through the woods walked Caius, and onward to the shore. Neddy Morrison
was dead. The little child who was lost in the sea was almost forgotten.
Caius, thinking upon these things, thought also upon the transient
nature of all things, but he did not think profoundly or long. In his
earlier youth h