re broken and restless. Evidently that human breast was
again admitting, or forcing itself to court, human hopes, human objects.
Returning to the substances of life, their movement was seen in the
shadows which, when they wrap us round at remoter distance, seem to
lose their trouble as they gain their width. He broke from his musing
attitude with an abrupt angry movement, as if shaking off thoughts
which displeased him, and gathering his arms tightly to his breast, in
a gesture peculiar to himself, walked to and fro the room, murmuring
inaudibly. The door opened; he turned quickly, and with an evident sense
of relief, for his face brightened. "Alban, my dear Alban!"

"Darrell! old friend! old school-friend! dear, dear Guy Darrell!" The
two Englishmen stood, hands tightly clasped in each other, in true
English greeting, their eyes moistening with remembrances that carried
them back to boyhood.

Alban was the first to recover self-possession; and, when the friends
had seated themselves, he surveyed Darrell's countenance deliberately,
and said, "So little change!--wonderful! What is your secret?"

"Suspense from life,--hibernating. But you beat me; you have been
spending life, yet seem as rich in it as when we parted."

"No; I begin to decry the present and laud the past; to read with
glasses, to decide from prejudice, to recoil from change, to find sense
in twaddle, to know the value of health from the fear to lose it; to
feel an interest in rheumatism, an awe of bronchitis; to tell anecdotes,
and to wear flannel. To you in strict confidence I disclose the truth: I
am no longer twenty-five. You laugh; this is civilized talk: does it not
refresh you after the gibberish you must have chattered in Asia Minor?"

Darrell might have answered in the affirmative with truth. What man,
after long years of solitude, is not refreshed by talk, however trivial,
that recalls to him the gay time of the world he remembered in his
young day,--and recalls it to him on the lips of a friend in youth! But
Darrell said nothing; only he settled himself in his chair with a
more cheerful ease, and inclined his relaxing brows with a nod of
encouragement or assent.

Colonel Morley continued. "But when did you arrive? whence? How long do
you stay here? What are your plans?"

DARRELL.--"Caesar could not be more laconic. When arrived? this evening.
Whence? Ouzelford. How long do I stay? uncertain. What are my plans? let
us discuss them."

COLO