y and joy to the meeting. There
is a surprise in it, no matter how long and carefully it has been
planned. There are a thousand things to talk of, but at first nothing
will come except the wonder of getting together. The sight of the
desired faces, unchanged beneath their new coats of tan, is a happy
assurance that personality is not a dream. The touch of warm hands is a
sudden proof that friendship is a reality.

Presently it begins to dawn upon us that there is something wonderful in
the place of our conjunction, and we realise dimly,--very dimly, I am
sure, and yet with a certain vague emotion of reverence,--where we are.

"We came yesterday," says the Lady, "and in the afternoon we went to see
the House of Simon the Tanner, where they say the Apostle Peter lodged."

"Did it look like the real house?"

"Ah," she answers smilingly, "how do I know? They say there are two of
them. But what do I care? It is certain that we are here. And I think
that St. Peter was here once, too, whether the house he lived in is
standing yet, or not."

Yes, that is reasonably certain; and this is the place where he had his
strange vision of a religion meant for all sorts and conditions of men.
It is certain, also, that this is the port where Solomon landed his
beams of cedar from Lebanon for the building of the Temple, and that the
Emperor Vespasian sacked the town, and that Richard Lionheart planted
the banner of the crusade upon its citadel. But how far away and
dreamlike it all seems, on this spring morning, when the wind is tossing
the fronds of the palm-trees, and the gleams of sunshine are flying
across the garden, and the last clouds of the broken thunderstorm are
racing westward through the blue toward the highlands of Judea.

Here is our new friend, the dragoman George Cavalcanty, known as
"Telhami," the Bethlehemite, standing beside us in the shelter of the
orange-trees: a trim, alert figure, in his belted suit of khaki and his
riding-boots of brown leather.

"Is everything ready for the journey, George?"

"Everything is prepared, according to the instructions you sent from
Avalon. The tents are pitched a little beyond Latrun, twenty miles away.
The horses are waiting at Ramleh. After you have had your mid-day
breakfast, we will drive there in carriages, and get into the saddle,
and ride to our own camp before the night falls."

_A PSALM OF THE DISTANT ROAD_

_Happy is the man that seeth the face of a friend in a fa