in the deep of that clear gray eye light may be calm, but in calm it is
vivid; not a ray, sent from brain or from heart, is yet flickering down.
On the whole, however, there is less composure than of old in his mien
and bearing; less of that resignation which seemed to say, "I have done
with the substances of life." Still there was gloom, but it was more
broken and restless. Evidently that human breast was again admitting,
or forcing itself to court, human hopes, human objects. Returning to the
substances of life, their movement was seen in the shadows which, when
they wrap us round at remoter distance, seem to lose their trouble as
they gain their width. He broke from his musing attitude with an abrupt
angry movement, as if shaking off thoughts which displeased him, and
gathering his arms tightly to his breast, in a gesture peculiar to
himself, walked to and fro the room, murmuring inaudibly. The door
opened; he turned quickly, and with an evident sense of relief, for his
face brightened. "Alban, my dear Alban!"

"Darrell! old friend! old school-friend! dear, dear Guy Darrell!" The two
Englishmen stood, hands tightly clasped in each other, in true English
greeting, their eyes moistening with remembrances that carried them back
to boyhood.

Alban was the first to recover self-possession; and, when the friends had
seated themselves, he surveyed Darrell's countenance deliberately, and
said, "So little change!--wonderful! What is your secret?"

"Suspense from life,--hibernating. But you beat me; you have been
spending life, yet seem as rich in it as when we parted."

"No; I begin to decry the present and laud the past; to read with
glasses, to decide from prejudice, to recoil from change, to find sense