He began to talk to her with a kindness that was at once simple and
stately.

"We must all have our ups and downs," he said to her, presently.
"Let me just give you a word of advice. It'll carry you through most
of them. Remember you are very young, and I shall soon be very old."

He stopped and surveyed her. His eyes blinked through their blanched
lashes. Lucy dropped her fork and looked back at him with smiling
expectancy.

"Learn Persian!" said the old man, in an urgent whisper--"and get
the dictionary by heart!"

Lucy still looked--wondering.

"I finished it this morning," said the Ambassador, in her ear.
"To-morrow I shall begin it again. My daughter hates the sight of
the thing. She says I overtire myself, and that when old people have
done their work they should take a nap. But I know that if it
weren't for my dictionary I should have given up long ago. When too
many tiresome people dine here in the evening--or when they worry me
from home--I take a column. But generally half a column's
enough--good tough Persian roots, and no nonsense. Oh! of course I
can read Hafiz and Omar Khayyam, and all that kind of thing. But
that's the whipped cream. That don't count. What one wants is
something to set one's teeth in. Latin verse will do. Last year I
put half Tommy Moore into hendecasyllables. But my youngest boy,
who's at Oxford, said he wouldn't be responsible for them--so I had