in the country; he had selected an unostentatious
plaid for the material of his clothes, and he wore a colored tie, which
just showed beneath the wave of his thick beard. He trod slowly but
firmly, putting his feet down as though prepared to prove his right to
the ground he trod on.

"Oh! Are you here, Miss Carvel?" he exclaimed, as he caught sight of
Hermione installed in a cane chair behind some plants. She was not much
pleased at being disturbed, but she looked up with a slight smile,
willing to be civil.

"Since you ask me, I am," she replied.

"Whereas if I had not asked you, you would have affected not to be here,
you mean? How odd it is that just when one sees a person one should
always ask them if one sees them or not! In this case, I suppose the
pleasure of seeing you was so great that I doubted the evidence of my
senses. Is that the way to turn a speech?"

"It is a way of turning one, certainly," answered Hermione. "There may
be other ways. I have not much experience of people who turn speeches."

"I have had great experience of them," said the professor, "and I
confess to you that I consider the practice of turning everything into
compliment as a disagreeable and tiresome humbug."

"I was just thinking the same thing," said Hermione.

"Then we shall agree."

"Provided you practice what you preach, we shall."

"Did you ever know me to preach what I did not practice?" asked Cutter,
with a smile of honest amusement.

"I have not known much of you, either in preaching or in practicing, as
yet. We shall see."

"Shall I begin now?"

"If you like," answered the young girl.

"Which shall it be, preaching or practicing?"

"I should say that, as you have me entirely at your mercy, the
opportunity is favorable for preaching."

"I would not make such an unfair use of my advantage," said the
professor. "I detest preaching. In practice I never preach"----

"You are making too much conversation out of those two words,"
interrupted Hermione. "If I let you go on, you will be making puns upon
them."

"You do not like puns?"

"I think nothing is more contemptible."

"Merely because that way of being funny is grown old-fashioned," said
Cutter. "Fifty or sixty years ago, a hundred years ago, when a man
wanted to be very bitingly sarcastic, he would compose a criticism upon
his enemy which was only a long string of abominable puns; each pun was
printed in italics. That was thought to be very funny."

"Yo