eman's apparent relief--the boy looked up at
the latter and said timidly--

"May I look at those books?"

His cousin stopped, and glanced at him with the first expression of
interest he had shown.

"Ah, you read; you like books?"

"Yes," said Clarence. As his cousin remained still looking at him
thoughtfully, he added, "My hands are pretty clean, but I can wash them
first, if you like."

"You may look at them," said Don Juan smilingly; "and as they are
old books you can wash your hands afterwards." And, turning to Flynn
suddenly, with an air of relief, "I tell you what I'll do--I'll teach
him Spanish!"

They left the room together, and Clarence turned eagerly to the
shelves. They were old books, some indeed very old, queerly bound, and
worm-eaten. Some were in foreign languages, but others in clear, bold
English type, with quaint wood-cuts and illustrations. One seemed to
be a chronicle of battles and sieges, with pictured representations of
combatants spitted with arrows, cleanly lopped off in limb, or toppled
over distinctly by visible cannon-shot. He was deep in its perusal when
he heard the clatter of a horse's hoofs in the court-yard and the voice
of Flynn. He ran to the window, and was astonished to see his friend
already on horseback, taking leave of his host.

For one instant Clarence felt one of those sudden revulsions of feeling
common to his age, but which he had always timidly hidden under dogged
demeanor. Flynn, his only friend! Flynn, his only boyish confidant!
Flynn, his latest hero, was going away and forsaking him without a
word of parting! It was true that he had only agreed to take him to his
guardian, but still Flynn need not have left him without a word of hope
or encouragement! With any one else Clarence would probably have taken
refuge in his usual Indian stoicism, but the same feeling that had
impelled him to offer Flynn his boyish confidences on their first
meeting now overpowered him. He dropped his book, ran out into the
corridor, and made his way to the court-yard, just as Flynn galloped out
from the arch.

But the boy uttered a despairing shout that reached the rider. He drew
rein, wheeled, halted, and sat facing Clarence impatiently. To add
to Clarence's embarrassment his cousin had lingered in the corridor,
attracted by the interruption, and a peon, lounging in the archway,
obsequiously approached Flynn's bridle-rein. But the rider waved him
off, and, turning sternly to Clarence