your respect for the fair sex rising?" he asked Coristine,
cynically.

"The mother's an awful old harridan--"

"Yes, and when the daughter is her age she will be a harridan, too, the
gentle rustic beauties have gone out of date, like the old poets. The
schoolmaster is much needed here to teach young women not to compare
gentlemen even if they are pedestrianizing, to 'any fool most.'"

"Oh, Wilks, is that where you're hit? I thought you and she were long
enough over that water business for a case of Jacob and Rachel at the
well, ha, ha!"

"Come, cease this folly, Coristine, and let us get along."

Sentiment had received a rude shock. It met with a second when Coristine
remarked "I'm hungry." Still, he kept on for another mile or so, when
the travellers sighted a little brook of clear water rippling over
stones. A short distance to the left of the road it was shaded by trees
and tall bushes, not too close together, but presenting, here and
there, little patches of grass and the leaves of woodland flowers.
Selecting one of these patches, they unstrapped their knapsacks, and
extracted from them a sufficiency of biscuits and cheese for luncheon.
Then one of the packs, as they had irreverently been called, was turned
over to make a table. The biscuits and cheese were moistened with small
portions from the contents of the flasks, diluted with the cool water of
the brook. The meal ended, Wilkinson took to nibbling ginger snaps and
reading Wordsworth. The day was hot, so that a passing cloud which came
over the face of the sun was grateful, but it was grateful to beast as
well as to man, for immediately a swarm of mosquitoes and other flies
came forth to do battle with the reposing pedestrians. Coristine's pipe
kept them from attacking him in force, but Wilkinson got all the more in
consequence. He struck savagely at them with Wordsworth, anathematized
them in choice but not profane language, and, at last, rose to his feet,
switching his pocket handkerchief fiercely about his head. Coristine
picked up the deserted Wordsworth, and laughed till the smoke of his
pipe choked him and the tears came into his eyes.

"I see no cause for levity in the sufferings of a fellow creature," said
the schoolmaster, curtly.

"Wilks, my darling boy, it's not you I'm laughing at; it's that old
omadhaun of a Wordsworth. Hark to this, now:--

He said, ''Tis now the hour of deepest noon.
At this still season of repose and peace,