itical sympathy not untinged with humor.

"I hope you are as well as I am," said he.

"A little tired this morning, I believe; I never was so strong a man
as you, Helwyse. I think I must have passed a bad night. I remember
dreaming I was an old man,--an old man with white hair, Helwyse."

"Were you glad to wake up again?" asked the young man, meeting the
elder's faded eyes.

"I hardly know whether I'm quite awake yet. And, after all, Thor, I'm
not sure that I don't wish the dream might have been true. If I were
really an old man, what a long, lonely future I should escape! but as
it is--as it is--"

He relapsed into reverie. Ah! Mr. MacGentle, are you again the tall
and graceful youth, full of romance and fire, who roamed abroad in
quest of adventures with your trusty friend Thor Helwyse, the
yellow-bearded Scandinavian? Do you fancy this fresh, unwrinkled face
a mate to your own? and is it but the vision of a restless
night,--this long-drawn life of dull routine and gradual
disappointment and decay? Open those dim eyes of yours, good sir! stir
those thin old legs! inflate that sunken chest!--Ha! is that cough
imaginary? those trembling muscles,--are they a delusion is that misty
glance only a momentary weakness There is no youth left in you, Mr.
MacGentle; not so much as would keep a rose in bloom for an hour.

"Have you seen Doctor Glyphic lately?" inquired Helwyse, after a
pause.

"Glyphic?--do you know, I was thinking of him just now,--of our first
meeting with him in the African desert. You remember!--a couple of
Bedouins were carrying him off,--they had captured him on his way to
some apocryphal ruin among the sand-heaps. What a grand moment was
that when you caught the Sheik round the throat with your
umbrella-handle, and pulled him off his horse! and then we mounted
poor Glyphic upon it,--mummied cat and all,--and away over the hot
sand! What a day was that! what a day was that!"

The speaker's eyes had kindled; for a moment one saw the far flat
desert, the struggling knot of men and horses, the stampede of the
three across the plain, and the high sun flaming inextinguishable
laughter-over all!--and it had happened nigh forty years ago.

"He never forgot that service," resumed Mr. MacGentle, his customary
plaintive manner returning. "To that, and to your saving the Egyptian
lad,--. Manetho,--you owe your wife Helen: ah! forgive me,--I had
forgotten; she is dead,--she is dead."

"I never could unders