ion into a lioness,
but it came into my head and seemed all right to start with."

"When I was a governess," said Miss Marty, "I used often to set it
for dictation. I had, I remember, the same difficulty you experience
with the name of the hero."

"Did you?" the Doctor exclaimed, delightedly. "That _is_ a
coincidence, isn't it? I sometimes think that when two minds are, as
one might say, attuned--"

"They are making a most dreadful noise," said Miss Marty, with a
glance across the river. "Did I hear you say that you were
victorious to-night?"

"Completely."

"The Major is a wonderful man."

"Wonderful! As I was saying, when two minds are, as one might say,
attuned--"

"He succeeds in everything he touches."

"It is a rare talent."

"I sometimes wonder how, with his greatness--for he cannot but be
conscious of it--he endures the restrictions of our narrow sphere.
I mean," Miss Marty went on, as the Doctor lifted his eyebrows in
some surprise, "the petty business of a country town such as ours."

"Oh," said the Doctor. "Ah, to be sure! . . . I supposed for a
moment that you were referring to the--er--terrestrial globe."

He sighed. Miss Marty sighed likewise. Across in the covert of the
woods someone had begun to beat a tattoo on the drum. Presently a
cornet joined in, shattering the echoes with wild ululations.

"Those fellows will be sorry if Sir Felix catches them," observed the
Doctor, anxiously. "I can't think what Hymen's about, to allow it.
The noise comes from right under the home-park, too."

"You depreciate the Major!" Miss Marty tapped her bare foot
impatiently on the pebbles; but, recollecting herself, drew it back
with a blush.

"I do not," answered the Doctor, hotly. "I merely say that he is
allowing his men yonder to get out of hand."

"Perhaps _you_ had better go, and, as the poet puts it, 'ride on the
whirlwind and direct the storm,'" she suggested, with gentle sarcasm.

The Doctor rose stiffly. "Perhaps, on the whole, I had.
Your stocking"--he lifted and felt it carefully--"will be dry in five
minutes or so. Shall I direct Cai Tamblyn to bring the boat hither
if I pass him on my way?"

She glanced up with a quivering lip.

"Isn't--isn't that a Sulphur Yellow?" she asked, pointing to a
butterfly which wavered past them and poised itself for an instant on
a pebble by the brink of the pool.

"Eh? By George! so it is." The Doctor caught up his shako and raced
off in