He would stand indeed with his hands on his sides, laughing and chatting with the boys, his head uncovered, his black curls blown backward from the great furrowed brow; and in the end Lucy peering from her nook would see him pacing up and down the ilex-walk with the priest,--haranguing and gesticulating--the old man in a pleased wonder looking at the Englishman through his spectacles, and throwing in from time to time ejaculations of assent, now half puzzled, and now fanatically eager.

"He is talking the book!"-- Lucy would think to herself--and her mind would rise in revolt.
One day after parting with the lads he came unexpectedly past her hiding-place, and paused at sight of her.

"Do the boys disturb you ?" he said, glancing at her book, and speaking with the awkward abruptness which with him could in a moment take the place of ease and mirth.
"Oh no--not at all." He fidgeted, stripping leaves from the arbutus tree under which she sat.
"That old priest who comes with them is a charming fellow!" Her shyness gave way.
"Is he ?--He looks after them like an old nurse.

And they are such babies--those great boys!" His eye kindled.
"So you would like them to be more independent--more brutal.

You prefer a Harvard and Yale football match--with the dead and wounded left on the ground ?" She laughed, daring for the first time to assert herself.
"No.