The young man scratched his head. “I doubt if we’ve got any book,” he began; then suddenly, “Perhaps this will be the very thing—if you like pictures.” He burrowed deep down in the back somewhere, and then produced two or three long, flat-looking books, dusty and a faded yellow. He wiped them with a cloth and presented them to Jeremy. At the first sight of them he knew that they were what he wanted. He read the titles: one was “Robinson Crusoe,” another “The Swiss Family Robinson,” the third “Masterman Ready.” He looked at “Crusoe,” and gave a delighted squeal of ecstasy as he turned over the pages. The print was funny and blacker than he had ever seen print before; the pictures were coloured, and _richly_ coloured, the reds and greens and purples sinking deep into the page. Oh! it was a lovely book! a perfect book! the very, very thing for Mary. “How much is it?” he asked, trembling before the answer. “Exactly five shillings and threepence halfpenny,” said the young man gravely. “That _is_ strange,” said Jeremy, almost crowing with delight and keeping his hand on the book unless it should suddenly melt away. “That’s just what I’ve got. Isn’t that lucky?” “Very fortunate indeed,” said the young man. “Shall I wrap it up for you?” “Oh, yes, please do—and very carefully, please, so nobody can guess what it is.” The young man was very clever about this, and when he emerged from the back of the shop he had with him a parcel that might easily have been a ship or a railway train. Jeremy paid his money, climbed down from his stool, then held out his hand. “Good-bye,” he said. “Thank you. I’ll come again one day and look at the other things in your shop.” “Please do,” said the young man, bowing. He went out, the little bell tinkling gaily behind him, and there, coming at that very moment out of the hotel, was Miss Jones. II We all know the truth of the familiar proverb that “Distance lends enchantment to the view,” and it was never more true of anything in the world than of parcels. All the way back in the ’bus the book grew and grew in magnificence simply because Jeremy could not see it. He clutched the parcel tightly on his knees and resisted all Miss Jones’s attempts to discover its contents. Back in the rectory, he rushed up to his bedroom, locked the door, and then, with trembling fingers, undid the paper. The first glimpse of “Robinson Crusoe and the Footmark on the Sand” thrilled him so that the white-washed walls of his room faded away and the thin pale evening glow passed into a sky of burning blue, and a scarlet cockatoo flew screaming above his head and the sand lay hot and sugar-brown at his feet. Mystery was there—the footprint in the sand, and Crusoe with his shaggy beard and peaked hat, staring. . . .