und here?"

Lewis shook his head.

"I don't believe Cellette knows anything about the country. It would be
a great thing, Dad, if we could take her with us. She's shown me around
a lot. I'd--I'd like to."

Leighton suppressed a grimace.

"Why not?" he replied cheerfully.

The next day was fine and hot. Leighton decided to take a chance on
innovation, and revisit a quiet stretch on the Marne. It was rather a
journey to get there, but from the moment the three were settled in
their third-class carriage time took to wing. As he listened to Lewis's
and Cellette's chatter, the years rolled back for Leighton. He became
suddenly young. Lewis felt it. For the second time he had the delightful
sensation of stumbling across a brother in his father.

Cellette felt it, too. When they left the station and started down the
cool, damp road to the river, she linked a hand in the arm of each of
her laughing companions, urged them to a run, and then picked up her
little feet for mighty leaps of twenty yards at a time. "_Ah,_" she
cried, "_c'est joli, d'etre trois enfants!_"

How strange the earth smelt! She insisted on stopping and snuffling at
every odor. New-mown grass; freshly turned loam; a stack of straw,
packed too wet and left to ruin; dry leaves burning under the hot sun
into a sort of dull incense--all had their message for her. Even of the
country Cellette had a dim memory tucked away in her store of
experience.

They came to the river. From a farmer they hired a boat. Cellette wanted
to drift down with the stream, but Leighton shook his head. "No, my
dear, a day on the river is like life: one should leave the quiet, lazy
drifting till the end."

Leighton rowed, and then Lewis. They held Cellette's hands on the oars
and she tried to row, but not for long. She said that by her faith it
was harder than washing somebody else's clothes.

They chose the shade of a great beech for their picnic-ground. Cellette
ordered them to one side, and started to unpack the lunch-basket that
had come with Leighton from his hotel. As each item was revealed she
cast a sidelong glance at Leighton.

"My old one," she said to him when all was properly laid out, "do not
play at youth and innocence any longer. It takes an old sinner to order
such a breakfast."

It was a gay meal and a good one, and, like all good meals, led to
drowsiness. Cellette made a pillow of Lewis's coat and slept. The
afternoon was very hot. Leighton finished his