t
vacation, at which time we counted on making additions to our treasure.

CHAPTER LXXII.

In the first week of October we received a joyous telegram from our
father bidding us leave for home as speedily as possible. My brother,
who was returning to Europe by a packet-boat on its way from Panama, was
to disembark at Southampton; we had but just time to reach home if we
wished to be there to welcome him.

We arrived the evening of the third day just in time, for my brother was
expected a few hours later on the night train. I had barely time to put
into his room, in their accustomed places, the various little trinkets
that he had four years previously confided to my care, before the hour
set for our departure to the station to meet him. To me his return,
announced so unexpectedly, did not seem a reality, and I was so excited
that for two nights I scarcely slept at all.

This is why, in spite of my impatience to see my brother, I fell asleep
at the station; when he appeared it seemed a sort of dream to me. I
embraced him timidly, for he was very different from my mental image of
him. He was bronzed and bearded, his manner of speech was more rapid,
and, with a slightly smiling, slightly anxious expression, he regarded
me fixedly, as if to ascertain what the years had done for me, and to
deduce from that what my future was to be.

When I returned home I fell asleep standing; it wad the dead sleepiness
of a child fatigued by a long journey, against which it is futile to
struggle, and I was carried to my bed.

CHAPTER LXXIII.

I awaked the following morning with a feeling of joyousness that
penetrated to the very depths of my being, and as I remembered the cause
for my happiness my eyes fell upon an extraordinary object standing on a
table in my room. It was evidently a very slim canoe with a balance beam
and sails. Then my gaze encountered other unfamiliar objects scattered
about: necklaces of shells strung on human hair, head-dresses of
feathers, ornaments appertaining to a dark and primitive savagery; it
was as if distant Polynesia had come to me during my sleep. My brother,
it seems had already begun to open his cases, and while I slept he had
slipped noiselessly into my room and grouped around me these ornaments
intended for my museum.

I jumped out of bed quickly so that I might go and find him, for I had
scarcely seen him the evening before.

CHAPTER LXXIV.

And it seems I hard