"Thank you, madam," said Medenham, rousing himself from a reverie, "I prefer to remain here. The hotel people will look after my slight wants, as I dislike the notion of anyone tampering with the engine while I am absent." "Is it so delicate, then?" asked Cynthia, with a smile that he hardly understood, since he could not know how thoroughly he had routed Mrs. Devar's theories of the previous night. "No, far from it. But its very simplicity challenges examination, and an inquisitive clodhopper can effect more damage in a minute than I can repair in an hour." His gruff tone was music in Mrs. Devar's ears. She actually sighed her relief, but explained the lapse instantly. "I do hope there is something nice to eat," she said. "This wonderful air makes one dreadfully hungry. When our tour is ended, Cynthia, I shall have to bant for months." The fare was excellent. Under its stimulating influence Miss Vanrenen forgot her vapors and elected for the front seat during the run to Glastonbury. Medenham thawed, too. By chance their talk turned to wayside flowers, and he let the Mercury creep through a high-banked lane, all ablaze with wild roses and honeysuckle, while he pointed out the blue field scabious, the pink and cream meadow-sweet, the samphire, the milk-wort and the columbine, the campions in the cornland, and the yellow vetchling that ran up the hillside towards one of the wooded "islands" peculiar to the center of Somerset. Cynthia listened, and, if she marveled, betrayed no hint of surprise that a chauffeur should have such a store of the woodman's craft. Medenham, aware only of a rapt audience of one, threw disguise to the breeze created by the car when the pace quickened. He told of the Glastonbury Thorn, and how it was brought to the west country by no less a gardener than Joseph of Arimathea, and how St. Patrick was born in the Isle of Avallon, so called because its apple-orchards bore golden fruit, and how the very name of Glastonbury is derived from the crystal water that hemmed the isle---- "Please let me intrude one little question," murmured the girl. "I am very ignorant of some things. What has 'Avallon' got to do with 'apples'?" "Ha!" cried Medenham, warming to his subject and retarding speed again, "that opens up a wide field. In Celtic mythology Avallon is Ynys yr Afallon, the Island of Apples. It is the Land of the Blessed, where Morgana holds her court. Great heroes like King Arthur and Ogier le Dane were carried there after death, and, as apples were the only first-rate fruit known to the northern nations, a place where they grew in luscious abundance came to be regarded as the soul-kingdom. Merlin says that fairyland is full of apple trees----" "I believe it is," cried Cynthia, nudging his arm and pointing to an orchard in full bloom. Mrs. Devar could hear little and understand less of what they were saying; but the nudge was eloquent; her steel-blue eyes narrowed, and she thrust her face between them.