his own nature he has made a
great advance towards the fulfilment of his ambitions. He has to
learn that just as the hot fit is followed by the cold the cold fit
is succeeded by the hot. He knows how intermittent he is. He learns to
mistrust his own mistrust of himself. The periods of depression grow
less frequent, and the depression grows less lasting. And then, just
as the cold fit becomes less chilling to the one, the fit of exultation
grows less intoxicating. The halo beams less bright--loss near.

Yet Philip, with the girl's eyes worshipping him, and her sweet voice
cooing hope and praise, and her hands knitted on his shoulder, and her
warm breath fanning his cheek, gave himself up to the vision, and felt
his heart warm with a world's welcome as yet far away from him.

The prose of life will assert itself, even to visionary eight-and-twenty
and sweet eighteen in love with one another. On this occasion it came
as a summons to supper. The summoner was a stout and jovial elderly
gentleman, about whose somewhat commonplace British exterior there was,
to Philip's mind, a reflection of the nimbus which glorified Patty to
his mind, for he was Patty's father. He had been called Old Brown at
school when he was young--he had been called Old Brown in the country,
and the prefix had found him out in town without the need for anybody
to breathe a whisper of it. He was Old Brown to his new acquaintances in
London before a month had gone by. The name suggests a beverage which is
not unlike Old Brown himself--being mild and nutty to the taste as he
to the mental palate--ripe and genial. He had a moist twinkle of the
eye,--the look which bespeaks the kindly humorist,--and his slightly
protruding under lip seemed covertly to taste the flavour of unspoken
jokes. Old Brown's jokes were mainly left unspoken, but he spent a
good part of his life in laughing without any very apparent reason for
laughter, and may have been internally the way he looked to be.

He shook hands with Philip, and chucked Patty under the chin with a
waggish aspect, which called an appealing blush into the girl's
face. Perhaps the blush stayed the intended quip, but any way the old
gentleman contented himself with a beaming laugh, and led the way to the
supper table, rubbing his hands and chuckling.

The meal was quietly jovial, and if, after it, Old Brown was not quite
so fast asleep as he pretended to be, at least his patience gave the
lovers the shelter th