“Our tea is ready,” said she, presently, advancing to the table.  She spoke in a low, gentle tone.

“This is grand!” said he, sitting down with them.  “I tell you, we’ll have fun before I leave here.”

They looked up at him and then at each other, Letitia laughing silently, S’mantha suspicious.  For many years fun had been a thing far from their thought.

“Play checkers?” he inquired.

“Afraid we couldn’t,” said Miss Letitia, answering for both.

“Old Sledge?”

She shook her head, smiling.

“I don’t wish to lead you into recklessness,” the teacher remarked, “but I’m sure you wouldn’t mind being happy.”

Miss S’mantha had a startled look.

“In—­in a—­proper way,” he added.  “Let’s be joyful.  Perhaps we could play ‘I spy.’”

“Y!” they both exclaimed, laughing silently.

“Never ate chicken pie like that,” he added in all sincerity.  “If I were a poet, I’d indite an ode ’written after eating some of the excellent chicken pie of the Misses Tower.’  I’m going to have some like it on my farm.”

In reaching to help himself he touched the teapot, withdrawing his hand quickly.

“Burn ye?” said Miss S’mantha.

“Yes; but I like it!” said he, a bit embarrassed.  “I often go and—­and put my hand on a hot teapot if I’m having too much fun.”

They looked up at him, puzzled.

“Ever slide down hill?” he inquired, looking from one to the other, after a bit of silence.

“Oh, not since we were little!” said Miss Letitia, holding her biscuit daintily, after taking a bite none too big for a bird to manage.

“Good fun!” said be.  “Whisk you back to childhood in a jiffy.  Folks ought to slide down hill more’n they do.  It isn’t a good idea to be always climbing.”

“‘Fraid we couldn’t stan’ it,” said Miss S’mantha, tentatively.  Under all her man-fear and suspicion lay a furtive recklessness.

“Y, no!” the other whispered, laughing silently.

The pervading silence of that house came flooding in between sentences.  For a moment Trove could hear only the gurgle of pouring tea and the faint rattle of china softly handled.  When he felt as if the silence were drowning him, he began again:—­

“Life is nothing but a school.  I’m a teacher, and I deal in rules.  If you want to kill misery, load your gun with pleasure.”

“Do you know of anything for indigestion?” said Miss S’mantha, charging her sickly voice with a firmness calculated to discourage any undue familiarity.

“Just the thing—­a sure cure!” said he, emphatically.

“Come high?” she inquired.

“No, it’s cheap and plenty.”

“Where do you send?”

“Oh!” said he; “you will have to go after it.”

“What is it called ?”

“Fun,” said the teacher, quickly; “and the place to find it is out of doors.  It grows everywhere on my farm.  I’d rather have a pair of skates than all the medicine this side of China.”