suddenly young. Lewis felt it. For the second time he had the delightful
sensation of stumbling across a brother in his father.

Cellette felt it, too. When they left the station and started down the
cool, damp road to the river, she linked a hand in the arm of each of
her laughing companions, urged them to a run, and then picked up her
little feet for mighty leaps of twenty yards at a time. "_Ah,_" she
cried, "_c'est joli, d'etre trois enfants!_"

How strange the earth smelt! She insisted on stopping and snuffling at
every odor. New-mown grass; freshly turned loam; a stack of straw,
packed too wet and left to ruin; dry leaves burning under the hot sun
into a sort of dull incense--all had their message for her. Even of the
country Cellette had a dim memory tucked away in her store of
experience.

They came to the river. From a farmer they hired a boat. Cellette wanted
to drift down with the stream, but Leighton shook his head. "No, my
dear, a day on the river is like life: one should leave the quiet, lazy
drifting till the end."

Leighton rowed, and then Lewis. They held Cellette's hands on the oars
and she tried to row, but not for long. She said that by her faith it
was harder than washing somebody else's clothes.

They chose the shade of a great beech for their picnic-ground. Cellette
ordered them to one side, and started to unpack the lunch-basket that
had come with Leighton from his hotel. As each item was revealed she
cast a sidelong glance at Leighton.