short time after this, when the daughter had returned and I rose to
go, the young girl put her soft, white hand into mine exactly as she
had done when I arrived, and the light in her eyes showed me, just as
it had showed me before, the pleasure she had taken in my visit. But
the mother's farewell was different from her greeting. I could see in
her kind air a certain considerate sympathy which was not there
before. She had been very prompt to tell me of her daughter's
engagement.

That young angel of peace and truth would not have deemed it necessary
to say a word about the matter, even to a young man who was a
school-master, and between whom and her family a mutual interest was
rapidly growing. But with the mother it was otherwise. She had seen
the shadows pass away from my countenance as I sat and talked upon
that cool piazza, my eyes bent upon her daughter. Mothers know.

CHAPTER XX

BACK FROM CATHAY

The next morning, being again settled in my rooms in Walford, I went
to call upon the Doctor and his daughter. The Doctor was not at home,
but his daughter was glad to see me.

"And how do you like your cycle of Cathay?" she asked.

"I do not like it at all," I answered. "It has taken me upon a dreary
round. I am going to change it for another as soon as I have an
opportunity."

"Then it has not been a wheel of fortune to you?" she remarked. "And
as for that country which you figuratively called Cathay, did you find
that pleasant?"

"In some ways, yes, but in others not. You see, I came back before my
vacation was over, and I do not care to go there any more."

She now wanted me to tell her where I had really been and what had
happened to me, and I gave her a sketch of my adventures. Of course I
could not enter deeply into particulars, for that would make too long
a story, but I told her where I had stopped, and my accounts of the
bear and the horse were deeply interesting.

"It seems to me," she said, when I had finished, "that if things had
been a little different, you might have had an extremely pleasant
tour. For instance, if Mr. Godfrey Chester had been living, I think
you would have liked him very much, and it is probable that you would
have been glad to stay at his inn for several days. It is a beautiful
country thereabout."

"Did you know him?" I asked.

"Oh yes," she said; "he was my teacher during part of my school-days
here. And then there is Mr. Burton; father is very fond of him. He