ered with dusty
volumes. Out of this room led the kitchen, which at least looked
clean. A rosy little maid was leaving after the day's work as we
entered.

"Sit down," said Gabriel's father to me; "sit down, my dear; you
shall have some tea in a minute." And he began taking plates down
from the dresser. Miss Norton, meanwhile, had disappeared, and
presently returned with a loaf, dragging Gabriel after her.

"I can't keep that boy out of the larder," she said plaintively.

Gabriel laughed and fetched the teapot, also a jug and two paper
bags. I thought I had better help, too. I discovered some knives in
the drawer of the table, and set them out.

"Tea or cocoa?" asked Richard Norton, pointing his finger at tea-pot
and jug in turn. I chose cocoa, I can't think why.

"That's lucky," sighed Gabriel; "there's no tea in the bag."

He made the cocoa, Jane Norton cut the bread; at last we sat down. I
don't think I ever enjoyed a meal so much in my life. They ate
voraciously, and we talked meanwhile in the silliest fashion, about
nothing at all, laughing until the tears rolled down our cheeks.

My friend is very funny, but his fun is of the kind that cannot bear
repeating; taken away from himself, separated from his personality,
it would sound merely foolish. You know what I mean. I sat next Miss
Norton during tea. When we had done, Gabriel stood up, chair and
all, and came beside me.

"What do you think of us?" he asked. "Aren't we rather nice?"

"Yes, indeed," I replied; "and the funny part of it is that I feel
as though I'd known you all my life."

"That's just how I feel with you," said Gabriel, and Richard Norton
added,--

"I like you; you're a nice girl; you don't turn up your nose at us
because we live in our own way. You're a nice girl."

"I like your way of living," said I, then. "From what I can see, it
seems to me you are about as free as any one can be in this world,
and that is the best of all things,--freedom."

"You've hit it!" cried Richard Norton, bringing his flat hand down
on the table. "We are free!"

"Now I'll tell you," said Gabriel. "This time last year we had
horrible lodgings in Bloomsbury. Father went every day to drudgery
in a dirty office, helping another man to rob his fellow-creatures;
aunt there gave lessons,--she can't teach a bit; she was only
putting nonsense into the heads of future men and women, and, such
as it was, putting it there wrong. I was doing likewise, and I teach