obvious fact but that would have been fussy--and fussy the professor
was firmly determined not to be. Aunt Caroline was fussy. The best
he could do was to select another rock, not so slippery, and to
provide an object lesson as to the proper way of sitting upon it.
Unfortunately, Desire was not looking. They had come a little way
"up trail"--at least Desire had said it was a little way, and her
companion was too proud of his recovered powers of locomotion to
express unkind doubt of the adjective. There had been no rainy days
for a week. The air was sun-soaked, and salt-soaked, and somewhere
there was a wind. But not here. Here some high rock angle shut it
out and left them to the drowsy calm of wakening Summer. Below them
lay the blue-green gulf, white-flecked and gently heaving; above
them bent a sky which only Italy could rival--and if Miss Farr with
her hands clasped round her knees were to move ever so little,
either way, there was nothing to prevent her from falling off the
face of the mountain. The professor tried not to let this reflection
spoil his enjoyment of the view. He reminded him-self that she was
probably much safer than she looked. And he remembered Aunt
Caroline. Still--

"Don't you think you might sit a little farther back?" he suggested
carelessly.

"Why?"

"I can't talk to the back of your head."

"Talk!" dreamily, "do you really have to talk?"

Naturally the professor was silent.