feel as if something untoward were going to happen. You have been
talking of past miseries to the guest, and have been living in past
unhappy times, and it is in the air all round us, and makes us feel
as if we were longing for something that we cannot have."

The old man smiled on her kindly, and said: "Well, my child, if that
be so, go and live in the present, and you will soon shake it off."
Then he turned to me, and said: "Do you remember anything like that,
guest, in the country from which you come?"

The lovers had turned aside now, and were talking together softly,
and not heeding us; so I said, but in a low voice: "Yes, when I was
a happy child on a sunny holiday, and had everything that I could
think of."

"So it is," said he. "You remember just now you twitted me with
living in the second childhood of the world. You will find it a
happy world to live in; you will be happy there--for a while."

Again I did not like his scarcely veiled threat, and was beginning to
trouble myself with trying to remember how I had got amongst this
curious people, when the old man called out in a cheery voice: "Now,
my children, take your guest away, and make much of him; for it is
your business to make him sleek of skin and peaceful of mind: he has
by no means been as lucky as you have. Farewell, guest!" and he
grasped my hand warmly.

"Good-bye," said I, "and thank you very much for all that you have
told me. I will come and see you as soon as I come back to London.
May I?"