her was writing letters, and Aunt Peace was
endeavouring to entertain him with reminiscences of her early youth.
When life lies fair in the distance, with the rosy hues of anticipation
transfiguring its rugged steeps and yawning chasms, we are young, though
our years may number threescore and ten. On that first day when we look
back, either happily or with remorse, to the stony ways over which we
have travelled, losing concern for that part of the journey which is yet
to come, we have grown old.

"That is very interesting," said Lynn, when Aunt Peace had finished her
description of the first school she attended. "I think I'll go out for a
walk now, if you don't mind. Will you tell mother, please, when she
comes down?"

He went off at a rapid pace and made a long, circling tour of East
Lancaster, ending at the bridge, where he, too, leaned over and looked
into the sunny depths of the stream. Doctor Brinkerhoff's sign, waving
in the wind, gave him an idea. Accidentally, he had hit upon his need;
he hungered for the companionship of his kind.

But Doctor Brinkerhoff was not at home, and the deserted corridors
echoed strangely beneath his tread. He walked the length of the long
hall a few times, because there seemed nothing else to do, and the
Doctor's cat, locked in the office, mewed piteously.

"Poor pussy!" said Lynn, consolingly, "I wish I could let you out, but I
can't."

Up the hill he went, his nameless irritation already sensibly decreased.
After all, it was good to be alive--to breathe the free air, feel the
warm sun upon his cheek and the springy turf beneath his feet.

"Someone is coming," announced Fraeulein Fredrika. "I think it will be
the Herr Irving."

"Herr Irving," repeated the Master. "Mine pupil? It is not the day for
his lesson."

"Perhaps someone is ill," suggested the Doctor.

But, as it happened, Lynn had no errand save that of pure friendliness.
His buoyant spirits immediately gave a freshness to the time-worn themes
of conversation, and they talked until sunset.

"It is good to have friends," observed the Master. "In one's wide
acquaintance every person has his own place. You lose one friend,
perhaps, and you think, 'Well, I can get along without him,' but it is
not so. We have as many sides as we know people, and each acquaintance
sees a different one, which is often only a reflection of himself.

"This afternoon, we have been speaking of Truth, and how it is that
things entirely opp