unobtrusively, and therefore skilfully.

"I am so glad to think," she said one day, when Kenelm had joined her
walk through the pleasant shrubberies in her garden ground, "that you
have made such friends with Mr. Emlyn. Though all hereabouts like him
so much for his goodness, there are few who can appreciate his
learning. To you it must be a surprise as well as pleasure to find,
in this quiet humdrum place, a companion so clever and well-informed:
it compensates for your disappointment in discovering that our brook
yields such bad sport."

"Don't disparage the brook; it yields the pleasantest banks on which
to lie down under old pollard oaks at noon, or over which to saunter
at morn and eve. Where those charms are absent even a salmon could
not please. Yes; I rejoice to have made friends with Mr. Emlyn. I
have learned a great deal from him, and am often asking myself whether
I shall ever make peace with my conscience by putting what I have
learned into practice."

"May I ask what special branch of learning is that?"

"I scarcely know how to define it. Suppose we call it
'Worth-whileism.' Among the New Ideas which I was recommended to study
as those that must govern my generation, the Not-worth-while Idea
holds a very high rank; and being myself naturally of calm and equable
constitution, that new idea made the basis of my philosophical system.
But since I have become intimate with Charles Emlyn I think there is a
great deal to be said in favour of Worth-whileism, old idea though it
be. I see a man who, with very commonplace materials for interest or
amusement at his command, continues to be always interested or