banks of the lake. He has missed, the last three days, his
walk with Sophy--missed the pleasing excitement of talking at her, and
of the family in whose obsolete glories he considers her very interest
an obtrusive impertinence. He has missed, too, his more habitual and
less irritating conversation with Darrell. In short, altogether he is
put out, and he vents his spleen on the swans, who follow him along the
wave as he walks along the margin, intimating either their affection for
himself, or their anticipation of the bread-crumbs associated with his
image--by the amiable note, half snort and half grunt, to which change
of time or climate has reduced the vocal accomplishments of those
classical birds, so pathetically melodious in the age of Moschus and on
the banks of Cayster.

"Not a crumb, you unprincipled beggars," growled the musician. "You
imagine that mankind are to have no other thought but that of supplying
you with luxuries! And if you were asked, in a competitive examination,
to define ME, your benefactor, you would say: 'A thing very low in the
scale of creation, without wings or even feathers, but which Providence
endowed with a peculiar instinct for affording nutritious and palatable
additions to the ordinary aliment of Swans!' Ay, you may grunt; I wish I
had you--in a pie!"

Slowly, out through the gap between yon grey crag and the thorn-tree,
paces the doe, halting to drink just where the faint star of eve shoots
its gleam along the wave. The musician forgets the swans and quickens
his pace, expecting to meet the doe's wonted companion. He is not
disappointed. He comes on Guy Darrell where the twilight shadow falls
darkest between the grey crag and the thorn-tree.

"Dear Fellow Hermit," said Darrell, almost gaily, yet with more than
usual affection in his greeting and voice, "you find me just when I want
you. I am as one whose eyes have been strained by a violent conflict
of colours, and your quiet presence is like the relief of a return to
green. I have news for you, Fairthorn. You, who know more of my secrets
than any other man, shall be the first to learn a decision that must
bind you and me more together--but not in these scenes, Dick.

'Ibimus--ibimus!
--------------------Supremum
Carpere iter, comites, parati!'"

"What do you mean, sir?" asked Fairthorn. "My mind always misgives me
when I hear you quoting Horace. Some reflection about the certainty of
death,