"A sweet spot," he said, lazily gathering himself together.

Kerisen rose quickly from a neighbouring heap of stones, and came to the side of the carriage. "Did you not find him?" he asked, as he tried to read her face.

"He is there," she answered, "but I did not see him. He is doing well, they say. His people are with him. They were very kind; and they will write to me."

Kerisen saw that further questions would not please her. He had become strangely observant of her moods. "Come," said he to Sebastian, who had by this time risen, "our inquiries are over. The day is before us. What shall we do?"

"We will get to Richmond somehow," answered Mr Archer-" dear Cockney Richmond. We have an endless summer day; and there is the river, the park, the view, and a tolerable dinner. Will that do, my little one?”

"Whatever you like, padre mio," she said; and Kerisen, looking at her, thought that he had never heard her voice so gentle nor seen her face so fair.

264

CHAPTER XXIII.

ON THE RIVER.

IRVINE did not die. The fevered body grew daily cooler, and the hot brain saner. It was a wonderful summer for England, and the early days of August made all men rest who could, and even all women. Lured partly by the thought of running water, partly by pity for the sick man, Mr Dale's friends gathered around him. Mrs Adare, enjoying the heat, and clad in the freshest of gowns, came from town, and carried her daughter across the road to the inn. It seemed better that the patient, now capable of recognition, should not be surprised by the presence of any lady more distracting than his nurse. So Ned Harefel succeeded Katharine at the cottage; and it was Ned's hand which felt the first friendly pressure of Irvine's wasted fingers. Sir Joseph, who had sat up very

late, grown very hot, and cried "Hear, hear!" and 'Oh, oh!" and made other important exclamations throughout a trying session, had been nursed back to his normal bloom by a devoted wife, and recommended complete repose after his severe parliamentary labours.

"Mens sana

So he took a house some two miles below Sunleigh, and thence the worthy baronet would come solemnly sculling against the stream, brooding once more over the great French Egg question, gaining an appetite for dinner, and showing a proper interest, as he hoped that he had never failed to do, in his eccentric nephew. in corpore sano," he observed more than once; and, indeed, no man of saner mind may be found on any of the senatorial benches. As for his dear good wife, the hot weather induced an amount of sleep which left but short time for her numerous housewifely duties. Nevertheless not a day went by on which her sleek horses did not bear her, asleep or awake, to the startled village of Sunleigh. For her the little rustic girls drew up short in their running, and bobbed as if dipping in the sea, while ruder little boys dashed through the dust with shouting. She, good lady, beamed on all alike, musing on some new comfort for the poor invalid, or considering how best to introduce to the doctor

her grandmother's infallible receipt for restoring the strength. She had a mingled admiration and contempt for the profession-consulting them and disobeying their orders, delighting in their conversation, quoting now one and now another as suited her theory of the moment, and summoning them all at intervals to be judged by the secret MS. book in which her lamented grandmother had inscribed her receipts for curing the parish of all ills, that grandmother, a mighty mistress of herbs, and revered as a witch by the infant imagination of her village. So Irvine opened his seeing eyes among friends, and an atmosphere of kindliness was about him, with the soft air of summer.

It was a breathless afternoon, save for that slight stir of air which on the stillest day moves on the moving river. Shaded by a large white umbrella, Irvine lay languid among the cushions as the boat glided on. The fulness of the time was in his heart; he sighed in his weakness, and his eyes filled with tears. Ned Harefel, sculling with long steady strokes, felt almost ashamed of his own strength as he looked at his friend. The old halfforgotten tenderness came back, with many memories. He looked back to the friendship of long ago, enshrined in a dim vision of works and days,

He forgot

dull-red buildings and majestic elms. cold slight and fierce speech-the comrade who would give nothing but companionship in pain. He forgot Katharine Adare. His friend and brother had come back to him from death, and from bitterness worse than death. The time of trouble was blotted out. They were boys once more. Ned was not given to sentimental speech, but he felt obliged to say something. "It's as if we were coming down from Monkey," he said.

"Let us go back to that," said Irvine, quickly, in his faint voice; and added, after a pause, "what a brute I have been to you ever since!"

"Oh no," answered the other, and had no more

to say.

Gliding on together, seeming to pass once more through scenes of happy boyhood, these two young Englishmen were full of deep and tender feeling, but not quick to speak. The young Briton ranks next to the good dog in pathetic inability to express emotion. Irvine, who sometimes had an unusual flow of words, was silent now, and only looked his thanks. Ned muttered something, which may have been, "Poor old man!" or "Dear old boy!" and betook himself to his sculling.

"It is good to be alive," said Irvine, after a