running in and out along the words like ripples of light on some dark
surface.

The face of Achilles had grown strangely radiant. Miss Stone, as she
looked at it again, was almost startled at the change. The sombre look
had vanished. Quick lights ran in it, and little thoughts that met the
child's and laughed. "They are two children together," thought Miss
Stone, as she watched them. "I have never seen the child so happy. She
must see him again." She sat with her hands folded in her grey lap, a
little apart, watching the pretty scene and happy in it, but outside it
all, untouched and grey and still.

VII

TO MEET THE "HALCYON CLUB"

Outside the door the horses pranced, champing a little at the bit, and
turning their shining, arching necks in the sun. Other carriages drove
up and drove away. Rich toilets alighted and mounted the red-brown
steps--hats that rose, tier on tier, riotous parterres of flowers and
feathers and fruit, close little bonnets that proclaimed their elegance
by velvet knot or subtle curve of brim and crown. Colours flashed,
ribbon-ends fluttered, delicately shod feet scorned the pavement. It was
the Halcyon Club of the North Side, assembling to listen to Professor
Addison Trent, the great epigraphist, who was to discourse to them on
the inscriptions of Cnossus, the buried town of Crete. The feathers and
flowers and boas were only surface deep. Beneath them beat an intense
desire to know about epigraphy--all about it. The laughing faces and
daintily shod feet were set firmly in the way of culture. They swept
through the wide doors, up the long carved staircase--from the Caracci
Palace in Florence--into the wide library, with its arched ceiling and
high-shelved books and glimpses of busts and pedestals. They fluttered
in soft gloom, and sank into rows of adjustable chairs and faced sternly
a little platform at the end of the room. The air of culture descended
gratefully about them; they buzzed a little in its dim warmth and
settled back to await the arrival of the great epigraphist.

The great epigraphist was, at this moment, three hundred and sixty-three
and one-half miles--to be precise--out from New York. He was sitting
in a steamer-chair, his feet stretched comfortably before him, a
steamer-rug wrapped about his ample form, a grey cap pulled over his
eyes--dozing in the sun. Suddenly he sat erect. The rug fell from his
person, the visor shot up from his eyes. He turned them blankly toward