"You could never guess," he assured her. "Tonight, at supper, grandfather suddenly told me that he wanted me to travel for a while--he wanted me to go away from Old Chester. I was perfectly amazed. 'Go hunt up a publisher for your truck,' he said. He always calls the drama my 'truck,'" Sam said snickering; "but the main thing, evidently, was to have me get away from home. To improve my mind, I suppose. He said all gentlemen ought to travel. To live in one place all the time was very narrowing, he said. I told him I hadn't any money, and he said he'd give me some. He said, 'anything to get you away.' It wasn't very flattering, was it?" Helena's face flashed into suspicion. "Why did he want to get you away?" she asked coldly. There was an alarmed alertness in her voice that made the boy look at her. "He said he wanted me to 'be able to know cakes and ale when I saw them,'" Sam quoted. "Isn't that just like grandfather?" "Know cakes and ale!" she stammered, and then looked at him furtively. She took one of the little hand-screens from the mantel, and held it so that he could not see her face. For a minute the pleasant firelit silence fell between them. "Oh, listen," Sam said in a whisper; "do you hear the sap singing in the log?" He bent forward with parted lips, intent upon the exquisite sound--a dream of summer leaves rustling and blowing in the wind. He turned his limpid stag's eyes to hers to feel her pleasure. "I think," Mrs. Richie said with an effort that made her voice hard, "that it would be an excellent thing for you to go away." "And leave you?" "Please don't talk that way. Your grandfather is quite right." The boy smiled. "I suppose you really can't understand? It's part of your loveliness that you can't. If you could, you would know that I can't go away. I told him I was much obliged, but I couldn't leave Old Chester." "Oh, please! you mustn't be foolish. I don't like you when you are foolish. Will you please remember how much older I am than you? Let's talk of something else. Let's talk about the little boy who is coming to visit me--his name is David." "I would rather talk about you, and what you mean to me--beauty and poetry and good--" "Don't!" she said sharply, "Beauty and poetry and goodness." "I'm not beautiful, and I'm not--poetical." "And so I worship you," the young man went on in a low happy voice. "Do please be quiet! I won't be worshipped." "I don't see how you are going to help it," he said calmly. "Mrs. Richie, I've got my skiff; it came yesterday. Will you go out on the river with me some afternoon?" "Oh, I don't think I care about boating," she said. "You don't!" he exclaimed blankly; "why, I only got it because I thought you would go out with me!" "I don't like the water," she said firmly. Sam was silent; then he sighed. "I wish I'd asked you before I bought it. Father is so unreasonable." She looked puzzled, for the connection was not obvious.