of nothing but their breakfast."

At the word "breakfast" (which had temporarily slipped from his
vocabulary) the famished professor wheeled so quickly that his knee
twisted. Miss Farr smiled, her cool and too-understanding smile.

"There's something to eat," she said. "Come in."

She did not wait for him but walked off quickly. The professor
followed more slowly. The path, even the front path, was rough (he
had noticed that last night); but the cottage, seen now with the
glamour of its outlook still in his eyes, seemed not quite so
impossible as he had thought. The grace of early spring lay upon it
and all around. True, it was small and unpainted and in bad repair,
but its smallness and its brownness seemed not out of keeping with
the mountain-side. Its narrow veranda was railed by unbarked
branches from the cedars. Its walls were rough and weather-beaten,
its few windows, broad and low. The door was open and led directly
into the living room whence his hostess had preceded him.

The marvellous scent of the morning was everywhere. The room, as he
went in, seemed full of it. Not such a bad room, either, not nearly
so comfortless as he had thought last night. There was a fireplace,
for instance, a real fireplace of cobble-stones, for use, not
ornament; a long table stood in the middle of the room, an old
fashioned sofa sprawled beneath one of the windows. There was a
dresser at one end with open shelves for china and, at the other, a
book-case, also open, filled with old and miscellaneous books. . . .

And, best and most encouraging of all, there was breakfast on the