And then, after such a day, one should sleep, one night, at their feet." The artist listened with delight, as he always did when his friend spoke in those rare moods that revealed a nature so unknown to the world that had made him famous.

When the novelist finished, the young man said gently, "And your words, my friend, are almost a direct quotation from that anonymous book which my mother so loved." "Perhaps they are, Aaron"-- admitted Conrad Lagrange--"perhaps they are." So it was that they spent that day--in leisure approach--the patient Croesus, with his burden, always in the lead, and Czar, like a merry sprite, playing here and there.

Several times they stopped to rest beside the road, while provident Croesus gathered a few mouthfuls of grass or weeds.

Many times they halted to enjoy the scene that changed with every step.
Their road led always upward, with a gradual, easy grade; and by noon they had left the cultivated section of the lower valley for the higher, untilled lands.

The dark, glossy-green of the orange and the lighter shining tints of the lemon groves, with the rich, satiny-gray tones of the olive-trees, were replaced now by the softer grays, greens, yellows, and browns of the chaparral.