"No, neither do I," he assented, promptly.

"Well, then?" she questioned.

"Shall I tell you a little story?" He smiled at her behind his stringy,
sandy beard, while his kind old eyes blinked wistfully.

"If you like. I shall be happy to hear it." She was not enthusiastic.
She was too deeply engrossed with pressing, practical questions to find
his mysticism greatly to the point.

He took a turn around the drawing-room before beginning, stopping to
caress the glaze of one of the K'ang-hsi vases on the mantelpiece, while
he arranged his thoughts.

"There was once a little people," he began, turning round to where she
sat in the corner of a sofa, her hands clasped in her lap--"there was
once a little people--a mere handful, who afterward became a race--who
saw the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, and
followed it. That is to say, some of them certainly saw it, enough of
them to lead the others on. For a generation or two they were little
more than a band of nomads; but at last they came to a land where they
fought and conquered and settled down."

"Yes? I seem to have heard of them. Please go on."

"It was a little land, rather curiously situated between the Orient and
the West, between the desert and the sea. It had great advantages both
for seclusion within itself and communication with the world outside. If
a divine power had wanted to nourish a tender shoot, till it grew strong