when there was no longer any land to steward it had gone with the rest,
and for several years had been uninhabited.

One day in early spring Halcyone saw smoke coming out of the chimney.
This was too interesting a fact not to be investigated; she resented it,
too--because a hole in the park paling had often let her into the garden
and there was a particularly fine apple tree there whose fruit she had
yearly enjoyed.

She crept nearer, a tall, slender shape, with mouse-colored hair waving
down her back, and a scarlet cap pulled jauntily over her brow--the
delightful feeling of adventure tingling in her veins. Yes, the gap was
there, it had not been mended yet--she would penetrate and see for
herself who this intruder could be.

She climbed through and stole along the orchard and up to the house.
Signs of mending were around the windows, in the shape of a new board
here and there in the shutters; but nothing further. She peeped over the
low sill, and there her eyes met those of an old man seated in a shabby
armchair, amid piles and piles of books. He had evidently been reading
while he smoked a long, clay pipe.

He was a fine old man with a splendid presence, his gray hair was longer
than is usual and a silvery beard flowed over his chest.

Halcyone at once likened him to Cheiron in the picture of him in her
volume of Kingsley's "Heroes."

They stared at one another and the old man rose and came to the window.