of us try to do our best, but none of us can do anything very
great."

Listening intently, Nidia was saying to herself, "How true he rings!
Note. The swagger and egotism of the up-to-date Apollo is conspicuously
absent here." Then, aloud--

"No; I was not chaffing. I believe you can do a great deal. Remember,
we have been very much together of late, and I rather pride myself upon
a faculty for character reading."

The delicate insinuation of flattery in her tone constituted the last
straw. John Ames felt his resolution growing very weak. Passionate
words of adoration rose to his lips--when--

A screech and chatter of child voices and scurrying feet, right behind
the rock under whose shadow the two were resting, then the sound of
scrambling, and their resting-place was theirs no more. A round
half-dozen uproarious infants were spreading themselves over the rock
slabs around, their shrill shrieks of glee hardly arrested, as with a
start they discovered the presence of others upon their new playground.
And that they were there to stay they speedily made known by dint of
yelling response to the calls of the parent-bird, whose own voice drew
nearer around the rock.

The spell was broken. At that moment John Ames would have given
anything to have seen the rocks below swept by a sudden tidal wave. The
spell was broken. The moment had come and gone, and he was aware, as by
an intuitive flash, that it would not come again.

Nidia rose. Did she welcome the fortuitous relief or not? he wondered,
as he glanced at her keenly.

"Let us stroll quietly back," she said. "We shall get no more peace
with that nursery romping round us. Besides, it's time we thought of
beginning the return ride.

"What an ideal day it has been!" resumed Nidia, when the ground became
even enough to carry on conversation with any degree of facility.
"Hasn't it?"

"M'yes. Very `ideal,' in that like other ideals it doesn't last. An
ideal is like a wine-glass, sooner or later destined to be shattered."

"That's quite true. I wonder are there any exceptions to the rule?"

"Safely, no. People set one up for themselves and adore it; then
crash--bang! some fine day they knock it down, and it shatters into
smithereens. Then there is a pedestal empty--a pedestal to let."

"And up goes another image, with like result," laughed the girl.

"Precisely. But how cynical we are becoming. By the way, to go back to
what I was saying a littl