. Pantry and larder also were well stocked; and Lois was
just watching the preparation of her chickens, Saturday evening, and
therefore in the kitchen, when Mr. Dillwyn came to the door. Mrs.
Barclay herself let him in, and brought him into her own warm,
comfortable, luxurious-looking sitting-room. The evening was falling
dusk, so that the little wood lire in Mrs. Barclay's chimney had
opportunity to display itself, and I might say, the room too; which
never could have showed to better advantage. The flickering light
danced back again from gilded books, from the polished case of the
piano, from picture frames, and pictures, and piles of music, and
comfortable easy-chairs standing invitingly, and trinkets of art or
curiosity; an unrolled engraving in one place, a stereoscope in
another, a work-basket, and the bright brass stand of a microscope.

The greeting was warm between the two friends; and then Mrs. Barclay
sat down and surveyed her visitor, whom she had not seen for so long.
He was not a beauty of Tom Caruthers' sort, but he was what I think
better; manly and intelligent, and with an air and bearing of frank
nobleness which became him exceedingly. That he was a man with a
serious purpose in life, or any object of earnest pursuit, you would
not have supposed; and that character had never belonged to him. Mrs.
Barclay, looking at him, could not see any sign that it was his now.
Look and manner were easy and careless as of old.

"You are not changed," she remarked.

"What should change me?" said he, while his eye ran rapidly over the
apartment. "And you?--you do not look as if life was stagnating here."

"It does not stagnate. I never was further from stagnation in all my
life."

"And yet Shampuashuh is in a corner!"

"Is not most of the work of the world done in corners? It is not the
butterfly, but the coral insect, that lays foundations and lifts up
islands out of the sea."

"You are not a coral insect any more than I am a butterfly," said
Dillwyn, laughing.

"Rather more."

"I acknowledge it, thankfully. And I am rejoiced to know from your
letters that the seclusion has been without any evil consequences to
yourself. It has been pleasant?"

"Royally pleasant. I have delighted in my building; even although I
could not tell whether my island would not prove a dangerous one to
mariners."

"I have just been having a discourse on that subject with my sister. I
think one's sisters are--I beg your pardon!