e,--

"Here's your old friend Helwyse, who died in Europe two years ago,
come back again, _younger than ever!_"

If the confidential clerk expected his superior to echo his own
bewilderment, he was disappointed. Mr. MacGentle unclosed his eyes,
looked up, and answered rather pettishly,--

"What nonsense are you talking about his dying in Europe, Mr. Dyke? He
hasn't been in Europe for six years. I was expecting him. Let him come
in at once."

But he was already there; and Mr. Dyke slipped out again with
consternation written upon his features. Mr. MacGentle found himself
with his thin old hand in the young man's warm grasp.

"Helwyse, how do you do?--how do you do? Ah! you look as well as ever.
I was just thinking about you. Sit down,--sit down!"

The old President's voice had a strain of melancholy in it, partly the
result of chronic asthma, and partly, no doubt, of a melancholic
temperament. This strain, being constant, sometimes had a curiously
incongruous effect as contrasted with the subject or circumstances in
hand. Whether hailing the dawn of the millennium; holding playful
converse with a child, making a speech before the Board,--under
whatever rhetorical conditions, Mr. MacGentle's intonation was always
pitched in the same murmurous and somewhat plaintive key. Moreover, a
corresponding immobility of facial expression had grown upon him; so
that altogether, though he was the most sympathetic and sensitive of
men, a superficial observer might take him to be lacking in the common
feelings and impulses of humanity.

Perhaps the incongruity alluded to had not altogether escaped his own
notice, and since discord of any kind pained him, he had mended the
matter--as best he could--by surrendering himself entirely to his
mournful voice; allowing it to master his gestures, choice of
language, almost his thoughts. The result was a colorlessness of
manner which did great injustice to the gentle and delicate soul
behind.

This conjecture might explain why Mr. MacGentle, instead of falling
upon his friend's neck and shedding tears of welcome there, only
uttered a few commonplace sentences, and then drooped back into his
chair. But it throws no light upon his remark that he had been
expecting the arrival of a friend who, it would appear, had been dead
two years. Helwyse himself may have been puzzled by this; or, being a
quick-witted young man, he may have divined its explanation. He looked
at his entertainer with cr