jealousy.... You see, son, everybody's children are mine—yes, you two's my kiddies—and I pretty much own the world; only, you see, I don't take it and use it except for traveling purposes. All I ask," said he, becoming quite serious, with a far-away expression in his splendid eyes while he pointed down the long white highway, "is a road to roam,—le long du trimard—a river now and then for variety, the sigh of my music in the greenwood, a bit of milk and cheese on a village common at night, for I love the homely gleam of distant lights, and the stars to sing me to sleep while browsing Rogue twinkles her grass.... Um, ah, doesn't make you sleepy, son, just to hear about it? Yes?"

"Now, Mr. Charles—"

"Reubelt King," I hastened to correct him, as he hesitated with a merry twinkle in his eye.

"—Reubelt King, run along and tell me whose house that is way down yonder on the river."

"The old home of the many pillars?" I questioned. "Monsieur l'abbé Jacques Picot."

"Father Picot?... The hell—O, I beg your pardon, Rogue, Pierrett, Columbine, and your young ladyship!... You females are terribly ubiquitous at times.... No, that's not a cuss-word, Mademoiselle. It means you women are always lingering around a good, healthy, pleasant, cussful male like me.

"Where'd I come from? Just down the chemin, my dears. And if you were impolite enough to ask me where I was going, that's where—down the road.... Where do I live?"

Jean François sings:

"Is that as you like it, my dears?... My cousin has quite a fancy for the song. He's a sort of trimardeur who once made plays.... He wrote 'em and acted 'em, but, son, I live 'em."

Then, seated upon the grass, he spoke half jestingly, and yet with a serious note of reminiscence in his voice:

"Sometimes I'm Jacques, that melancholy cuss. Sometimes I'm Puck—merry Robin Goodfellow. You wouldn't believe it, now, would you? Sometimes, Touchstone. Often I am Ariel—

"I have been Romeo, but no more for me.... Nance, you red-headed little jade, how old are you?"

We were preparing to leave. We weren't interested. What did we care about all of this? Who were Ariel and Puck, anyhow? I could see that Nance did not like one bit being a "red-headed jade." She was always very sensitive about the color of her hair and the freckles on her nose.

"Don't go, my kiddies," he suddenly pleaded. "Look-e-here. I'm going to make a big, crackling fire in a minute. Then we'll have a bucket of water from the river. I've a kettle and some eggs aboard the Columbine.... Say, we'll have the one great time of our lives!"

It took no unusual amount of insisting to make us enter into a game like that with zest. And O, the mysteries of the interior of Mademoiselle Columbine. O, the stories of caliphs and kings and grand viziers and robbers and things. And they were friends of his, too. Personal friends!

It was unpleasantly late when we stole away home to scoldings and to bed. He told us to refer 'em to him, and he'd fix things with the grown-ups. Our parting glimpse, as we ran across the pasture, was Jean François, seated in the grass within the circle of the glowing light of the embers, talking to his pipe. Pretty soon, we knew for he told us, he'd be in bed. He used the stars, he remarked, to button the covers down, and he'd dip 'em into the river to put them out in the morning.

CHAPTER TWO

THE JADE AND THE INQUISITION

It is time you knew old Doctor Felix Longstreet, Nance Gwyn's Waltonian grandfather. For short, she frequently designated him as "The G. F." His chief happiness lay in the hours he stole from his practise to put in with a rod and minnows on Eagle Creek and in rearing his granddaughter, both of whose parents were dead, in the most unconventional manner possible. With him lived a maiden sister, Miss Barbara. Her gods were convention and propriety. They were the doctor's devils. Truly, Nance lived "between the devil and the deep blue sea!"

"The world of men," I once heard the old doctor remark, "is divided into two classes: those who understand that a river has a heart and those who do not care a tinker's damn if it hasn't." Upon his retiring from the room a half-hour after this sentence was delivered, Aunt Barbara, after glancing timidly about to be sure that he had gone, ventured to Nance and me, engaged in making a small boat upon the portico, the following:

"He is right. Always right, for that matter!" she exclaimed with vehemence, nervously patting her foot upon the floor. "Now I know of no one who has so many characteristics in common with a stream as my brother Felix. He can be as full of peace and happiness and gentle little ripples to-day, then to-morrow as picturesque with whippy, foamy whitecaps and occasional squalls as the river he loves."

"Very true, Aunt Barbara," commented Nance with deliberateness, "and I know he can flow by in the most exasperatingly placid, disinterested manner possible. Also, should the occasion arise, quickly fill up with ice!"

It would be unfair, however, not to tell you that a more gentle man or true never lived than this old river god. Indeed, he is the veritable reincarnation of Izaak Walton. It is true old Izaak tended his linen-draper's shop, while Doctor Longstreet tends his pills. It was Jean François who made the remark that the chief difference lay in the fact that the one coated the body on the outside while the other coats it on the inside. Our pedler also pointed out, again, that both were very much alike in loving a friend, a pipe with a bit of philosophy, a quiet stream, and a favorite rod with which to go a-fishing.

Just how long Doctor Longstreet has practised medicine in Oldmeadow, I shall not presume to say. It seems to me as if always he has been there; always smelling delightfully of a mixture of strong tobacco smoke and carbolic acid; always riding over the countryside, or carrying through the town a pair of small leather saddle-bags or a fishing pole. Very frequently both. Nance, who was in a position to know, said that one side of these cases contained pills and the other angle