pages, murmured with a smile:

'_Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt_!'

'Even so!' exclaimed Mr. Warricombe, laughing with a subdued heartiness
which was one of his pleasant characteristics. And, after a pause, he
inquired, 'Do you find any time to keep up your classics?'

'By fits and starts. Sometimes I return to them for a month or two.'

'Why, it's pretty much the same with me. Here on my table, for
instance, lies Tacitus. I found it mentioned not long ago that the
first sentence of the _Annals_ is a hexameter--did you know it?--and
when I had once got hold of the book I thought it a shabby thing to
return it to the dust of its shelf without reading at least a few
pages. So I have gone on from day to day, with no little enjoyment.
Buckland, as you probably know, regards these old fellows with scorn.'

'We always differed about that.'

'I can't quite decide whether he is still sincere in all he says about
them. Time, I suspect, is mellowing his judgment.'

They moved to the shelves where Greek and Latin books stood in serried
order, and only the warning dinner-bell put an end to their sympathetic
discussion of the place such authors should hold in modern educational
systems.

'Have they shown you your room?' Mr. Warricombe asked.

But, as he spoke, the face of his eldest son appeared at the door.

'Your traps have safely arrived, Peak.'

The bedroom to which Godwin was conducted had a delicious fragrance, of
source indeterminable. When he had closed the door, he stood for a few
moments looking about him; it was his first experience of the upper
chambers of houses such as this. Merely to step upon the carpet
fluttered his senses: merely to breathe the air was a purification.
Luxury of the rational kind, dictated by regard for health of body and
soul, appeared in every detail. On the walls were water-colours,
scenery of Devon and Cornwall; a hanging book-case held about a score
of volumes poets, essayists, novelists. Elsewhere, not too prominent,
lay a Bible and a Prayer-book.

He dressed, as never before, with leisurely enjoyment of the process.
When the mirror declared him ready, his eyes returned frequently to an
inspection of the figure he presented, and it seemed to him that he was
not unworthy to take his place at the dinner-table. As for his visage,
might he not console himself with the assurance that it was of no
common stamp? 'If I met that man in a room, I should be curious about
him; I shoul