Apaches. In him the branch of the family tree had burgeoned into the
perfect cleric. Yet sometimes, the play of light beneath the surface
of those blue eyes, so like her own, and the delicately intoned
challenges of his courtly voice, exasperated her beyond measure.
"It's obvious to any idiot, my dear," she replied testily. "Just
look at him. It speaks for itself."

The Archdeacon put his thin hand on her plump shoulder, and smiled.
The old man had a very sunny smile. "I'm sorry to carry on a
conversation so Socratically," said he. "But what is 'it'?"

"I've never seen anything so physically beautiful, save the statues
in the Vatican, in all my life. If he's not an aristocrat to the
finger tips, I'll give up all my work, turn Catholic, and go into a
nunnery--which will distress you exceedingly. And then"--she
waved a plump hand--"and then, as I've mentioned before, he reads
the Religio Medici. The commonplace, vulgar young man of to-day no
more reads Sir Thomas Browne than he reads Tertullian or the
Upanishads."

"He also reads," said the Archdeacon, stuffing his hand into Paul's
knapsack, against whose canvas the stiff outline of a book revealed
itself--"he also reads"--he held up a little fat duodecimo--
"the Chansons de Beranger."

"That proves it," cried Miss Winwood.

"Proves what?"

His blue eyes twinkled. Having a sense of humour, she laughed and