ok at your treasure, Mister Duncan? Sure,
it's selfish ye are, now, to keep her all this long time to yourself!
The little chap's holidays! Ah, true for you. We had forgotten him. And
ye are sure that he is well done to, and safely lodged where they have
put him, Miss Irma?"

"If you bide a minute or two, Boyd," said Irma, smiling, well-pleased,
"you may very likely have the chance of judging for yourself. For it is
almost his time to be here, for to-day is a holiday!"

In fact, it was not a quarter of an hour before a shout, the triumphal
opening of the outer gate with a rush and a clang, and a merciless
pounding on the front door announced the arrival of Sir Louis. He had
grown out of all knowledge, declared the visitor, "but no doubt the
young gentleman had forgotten old Boyd Connoway."

"Oh, no," said Louis; "come and show me some more cat's cradles; I know
two more 'liftings' already than any boy in the school. But _you_ can do
at least a dozen!"

And so, with the woven string about his long clever fingers, Louis
watched the deft and sure manipulation of Boyd Connoway as he "lifted"
and wove, changing the pattern indefinitely. For the time being the
village "do-nothing"--in the sense that he was the busiest man in the
place about other folk's business--was merely another boy at Louis's
school. And as he worked, he talked, delightfully, easily, dramatically.
He made the old life of Eden Valley pass before us. We heard the brisk
tongue of my grandmother from the kitchen, that of Aunt Jen ruling as
much of the roost as was permitted to her, but constantly made aware of
herself by her mother's dominating personality.

With equal facility he recalled my father in his classes, looking out
for collegers to do him credit, my mother passing silently along her
retired household ways, Agnes Anne dividing her time between helping her
mother in the house, and teaching the classes for which I used to be
responsible in the school.

It was a memorable day in the little house above the Meadows. Louis
played with Boyd Connoway all the time, learning infinite new tricks
with string, with knife-blades, perfecting himself in the art of making
fly-hooks, of kite manufacture, and the art of lighting a fire.

He had presented to him Boyd's spare "sulphur" box, in which were
tinder, flint and steel, matches dipped in brimstone, and a pair of
short thick candles which could be set one at a time in a socket formed
by the box itself,