d danced before his eyes. He sat
down upon the ladder, and covered his face with his hands. He
recalled his past life, and wondered what it would turn to now.
Every one of those words of Peter Lars recurred to him--he could
have put down every syllable in writing--in characters cut deep into
his heart. He read them over again from beginning to end--and
the end made him hesitate. What he had said of Helen appeared
improbable--inconceivable--impossible! Yet what could he remember to
oppose to it?--how much rather in corroboration of these conclusions?--

His blood was hammering violently at his temples, he dropped the
charcoal, for he could not hold it The deep depression of the first few
moments began rapidly to give way to a feeling of rapture, to which he
had almost given voice in a shout of ecstasy.

He looked down from his scaffolding, away over the sunny gardens, where
the discolored turf was rapidly changing to green velvet, and the young
leaves, still folded in their opening buds, were only waiting for one
drop of rain to burst forth full length. He heard the singing-birds
warbling in the transparent air, and under the roof of the semicircle
that formed the gallery, he saw the swallows busy about their nests.

His mood was glad and tender; he no longer thought how he should meet
his father; or how he should act in furtherance of his darling wish to
turn his back on paintpot and plaster.

He saw nothing but her earnest face, now with an unwonted look of
tenderness; and those ivory arms and shoulders; and heard her voice
with that accent in which she had said, as she had kissed him on the
forehead; "so spoiled a creature can afford to laugh."

He could not tell how long he had been dreaming, until the two boys
reminded him that it was time to eat his dinner. And he let them eat
it, and remained where he was. He wanted neither meat nor drink.

Presently he started violently, on hearing the old pensioner who kept
the gardens, say in answer to somebody's question: "You will find Mr.
Walter in the shell-gallery. I scarcely think he means to leave his
work to-day, so long as the light lasts."

His knees shook as he got up; and all his self-possession left him at
the thought that he was about to see his father for the first time,
consciously.

Only it was not the heavy uneven gait he expected that he heard coming
up the steps, though the eyes that looked up through the tall windows
in search of him upon his sca