stones; a wall of rock overhead crowned by glowing
furze; a herd of red cattle sent scampering through the bright-green
grass. Now we get slowly into a small white station, and catch a glimpse
of a tiny town over in the valley: again we go on by wood and valley, by
rocks and streams and farms. It is a pleasant drive on such a morning.

In one of the carriages in this train Master Harry Trelyon and his
grandmother were seated. How he had ever persuaded her to go with him to
Cornwall by train was mysterious enough, for the old lady thoroughly
hated all such modern devices. It was her custom to go traveling all
over the country with a big, old-fashioned phaeton and a pair of horses;
and her chief amusement during these long excursions was driving up to
any big house she took a fancy to, in order to see if there was a chance
of its being let to her. The faithful old servant who attended her, and
who was about as old as the coachman, had a great respect for his
mistress, but sometimes he swore--inaudibly--when she ordered him to
make the usual inquiry at the front-door of some noble lord's country
residence, which he would as soon have thought of letting as of
forfeiting his seat in the House of Peers or his hopes of heaven. But
the carriage and horses were coming down, all the same, to Eglosilyan,
to take her back again.

"Harry," she was saying at this moment, "the longer I look at you, the
more positive I am that you are ill. I don't like your color: you are
thin and careworn and anxious. What is the matter with you?"

"Going to school again at twenty-one is hard work, grandmother," he
said. "Don't you try it. But I don't think I'm particularly ill: few
folks can keep a complexion like yours, grandmother."

"Yes," said the old lady, rather pleased, "many's the time they said
that about me, that there wasn't much to complain of in my looks; and
that's what a girl thinks of then, and sweethearts and balls, and all
the other men looking savage when she's dancing with any one of them.
Well, well, Harry; and what is all this about you and the young lady
your mother has made such a pet of? Oh yes, I have my suspicions; and
she's engaged to another man, isn't she? Your grandfather would have
fought him, I'll be bound; but we live in a peaceable way now. Well,
well, no matter; but hasn't that got something to do with your glum
looks, Harry?"

"I tell you, grandmother, I have been hard at work in London. You can't
look very