Professor Marshall faced the piano again and precipitated himself headlong into the diabolic accelerandos of "The Hall of the Mountain-King." His sister listened with extreme and admiring appreciation of his talent. "Upon my word, Elliott," she said heartily, "under the circumstances it's incredible, but it's true your touch positively improves."

"A pair of friends, though I was young, And he was seventy-four." From the rear of his court-yard he showed me Rydal Water, a little lake about a mile long, the beautiful church, and beyond it, Grassmere, and still further beyond, Helvelyn, the mountain-king with a retinue of a hundred hills.

The whole world lay below them, bathed, too, in bright sunshine, for the storm, which had so suddenly swooped upon them, was confined, like an elemental body-guard, to the head of the mountain-king.