ch of turfy common, with its taverns of figurative names, its
ivy-towered church, its mossy roofs, looked like the property of a
feudal lord. It was in this dark composite light that I had read the
British classics; it was this mild moist air that had blown from the
pages of the poets; while I seemed to feel the buried generations in the
dense and elastic sod. And that I must have testified in some form or
other to what I have called my thrill I gather, remembering it, from a
remark of my companion's.

"You've the advantage over me in coming to all this with an educated
eye. You already know what old things can be. I've never known it but by
report. I've always fancied I should like it. In a small way at home, of
course, I did try to stand by my idea of it. I must be a conservative by
nature. People at home used to call me a cockney and a fribble. But it
wasn't true," he went on; "if it had been I should have made my way over
here long ago: before--before--" He paused, and his head dropped sadly
on his breast.

The bottle of Burgundy had loosened his tongue; I had but to choose my
time for learning his story. Something told me that I had gained his
confidence and that, so far as attention and attitude might go, I was
"in" for responsibilities. But somehow I didn't dread them. "Before you
lost your health," I suggested.

"Before I lost my health," he answered. "And my property--the little I
had. And my ambition. And any power to take myself seriously."

"Come!" I cried. "You shall recover everything. This tonic English
climate will wind you up in a month. And THEN see how you'll take
yourself--and how I shall take you!"

"Oh," he gratefully smiled, "I may turn to dust in your hands! I should
like," he presently pursued, "to be an old genteel pensioner, lodged
over there in the palace and spending my days in maundering about these
vistas. I should go every morning, at the hour when it gets the sun,
into that long gallery where all those pretty women of Lely's are
hung--I know you despise them!--and stroll up and down and say something
kind to them. Poor precious forsaken creatures! So flattered and courted
in their day, so neglected now! Offering up their shoulders and ringlets
and smiles to that musty deadly silence!"

I laid my hand on my friend's shoulder. "Oh sir, you're all right!"

Just at this moment there came cantering down the shallow glade of the
avenue a young girl on a fine black horse--one of those li