nance deliberately, and said: " So little change!—wonderful! What is your secret?"
"Suspense from life—hybernating. But you beat me; you have been spending life, yet seem as rich in it as when we parted."
"No; I begin to decry the present and laud the past—to read with glasses, to decide from prejudice, to recoil -from change, to find sense in twaddle—to know the value of health from the fear to lose it—to feel an interest in rheumatism, an awe of bron- chitis—to tell anecdotes and to wear flannel. To you in strict confidence I disclose the truth—I am no longer twenty-five. You laugh—this is civilized talk; does it not refresh you after the gibberish you must have chattered in Asia Minor?"
Darrell might have answered in the affirmative with truth. What man, after long years of solitude, is not refreshed by talk, however trivial, that recalls to him the gay time of the world he remembered in his young day—and recalls it to him on the lips of a friend in youth! But Darrell said nothing; only he settled himself in his chair with a more cheerful ease, and inclined his relaxing brows with a nod of encouragement or assent.
Colonel Morley continued, " But when did you arrive? whence? How long do you stay here? What are your plans?"
Darrell. "Caesar could not be more laconic. When arrived?—this evening. Whence?—Ouzelford. How long do I stay?—uncertain. What are my plans?—let us discuss them."
Colonel Morley. "With all my heart. You have plans, then?—a good sign. Animals in hybernation form none."
Darrell(putting aside the lights on the table, so as to leave his face in the shade, and looking toward the floor as he speaks). "For the last five years I have struggled hard to renew interest in mankind, reconnect myself with common life and its healthful objects. Between Fawley and London I desired to form a magnetic medium. I took rather a vast one—nearly all the rest of the known world. I have visited both Americas—either Ind. All Asia have I ransacked, and pisceed as far into Africa as traveller ever went in search of Timbuctoo. But I have sojourned also, at long intervals—at least they seemed long to me —in the gay capitals of Europe (Paris excepted); mixed, too, with the gayest—hired palaces, filled them with guests—feasted and heard music. ' Guy Darrell,' said I, ' shake off the rust of years—thou hadst no youth while young. Be young now. A holiday may restore thee to wholesome work , as a holiday restores the wearied school-boy.'"
