Halcyone

r in the Italian parlor after breakfast, "do you not think we had better have Halcyone down to dinner to-ni

y to upset regulations. She was difficult to deal

ests appeared to be quite a young man-perhaps it might be more prudent

e a perfect stranger-might be too much for us. I hardly think our Mamma would have approved of our giving such an unchaperoned party, so for this on

-the Professor was n

Timothy's bed- and dressing-room just for to-night, instead of those Wind

he good news. They would arrange flowers in the épergne, she suggested-a few sweet williams and mignonette and a foxglove or two.

and fetch the épergne-and we can pick what we think best. Or-don't you think just a big china bo

ner parties and she liked not innovations. It was indeed as much as Halcyone could do to get all the flowers of the same kind, a nasturtium and a magenta stock had with ca

sisted by Hester and Priscilla, had been busy polishing most of the day-while the cook and the "young person from the village" were contriving wonders in the vast kitchen.

l some forty years ago when a certain whiskered captain of a dashin

hild might easily have been taken for a girl of fifteen, and her perfect feet were encased in a pair of old-fashioned bronze slippers w

steps could be seen advancing Mr. Carlyon and his guest. They had walked over from the cottage-and Halcyone, observ

Theseus was after he grew

they were

well as coming to the monthly dinner, sometimes dropped in to tea on Sunda

the world, Miss Roberta thought, and her

he aroma of untouched early-Victorian prudish grace which the ancient ladies threw around them appealed to his imagination, as any complete bit of art or nature always

lways felt he must make nursery jokes wit

. "If he had any more intelligence God would

address her; he devoted

h a rod of iron, imposing his interesting enthusiastic personality upon all companies with unqualified success. Miss La Sarthe fell at once. He said exactly t

irls are expected to be so very clever nowadays, we are told. She already kno

sex they were meant to be feminine, dainty, exquisite creatures as those I see to-night," an

of that thick, ill-cut look we are obliged to observe in so many

s Roberta replied. "Mr. Carlyon told me the Derringham

s appreciated fully in at leas

moved, and the port wine and old Mad

or its port," she said, "and we h

n Italy and Greece, but she could not find any likeness to him in any of her recollection of them. Alas! his face was not at all Greek. His nose was high and aquiline, his forehead high and broad, and there was something noble and dominating in his fearless regard. His hair even did not grow very prettily, though it was thick and dark-

d him, and her

d his natural good manners, which he was quite aware he

ith him," he said; "we under him at Oxford were not half so d

because I had a book when I was little which told me about those splendid heroes, and I

in that. What was

I would be like Perseus and go and kill the Gorgon and rescue Andromeda from the sea monster. Pallas Athené sa

said John Derringham.

scern their manhood or their baseness. And from the souls of clay I turn away; and they are blest, but not by me. They fatten at ease like sheep in the pasture and eat what they did not sow, like oxen in the stall. They gr

astonished at himself because he was conscio

id-and her v

paths, Perseus, that they may fight the Titans and monsters, the enemies of gods and men. Through doubt and need and danger and battle I drive them, and some of them are slain in the flower of youth, no man knows when or where, and

m a personal question and

s Perseus did. Te

ance of winning a noble name than to live at eas

s eyes as he looked at her-and took in every detail of her pure childish face. "You wonderful, strange little gi

Mr. Carlyon had made some delightfully obvious joke for his delectation and amidst a smil