“I comforted him and told him, against my belief, that he would be out cutting the inscription next spring. But he shook his head sorrowfully, and at each visit he seemed to grow weaker and weaker. The climax came quite suddenly. Summer had turned to fall, and I was taking my usual walk by the light of the harvest moon, passing through the old churchyard, where the German had been buried and the cross had now been put, uncarved. For we boasted no other stonecutter in the village. I went up to look at it, and by the moonlight I caught sight of the figure of a man. Bending down, I saw my old friend, dead, by the work he had promised. It was not till the next day that they found his chisel by the tombstone, and about a dozen letters which he had chiselled. The villagers thought that the old man had gone out of his mind, for the letters on the stone were not the beginning of the epitaph we had agreed on. They think so yet. For I never told them, and I am the only man who can read what is written on the stone.” Here the Dean was silent a moment or so. “Well, what had he carved?” I asked. “_Bis patriae m_ ... Twice the hand of the father failed. The dead man was his son.” THE VISIT OF THE MASTER _By_ ARTHUR JOHNSON From _Harper’s Magazine_ _Copyright, 1918, by Harper and Brothers._ _Copyright, 1919, by Arthur Johnson._ “Have you ever read any of Marian Haviland Norton?” I didn’t expect, when I put the question, to fall right into a mine of information. It was out of my line, moreover, to talk about authors and books at dinner. But the topic had popped inconsequently into my head, and there was certainly something about the quiet, sly-looking Jane-Austenish woman at my left that inspired confidence. “I’m distinctly curious about her,” I added. “She’s sprung up so soon, so authoritatively. And she’s so new.” Up to this point my companion had only listened more quietly, more slyly, than ever; but her eyes now opened wide, her eyebrows went whimsically high, and she turned to me with a twinkling smile. “_New?_ You really think so?” She gave me no time, either, to correct my statement. “I didn’t suppose any one still thought that—except, possibly— Have _you_ ever read Hurrell Oaks?” I nodded gropingly. “Miss Haviland was a teacher of mine at Newfair when it happened. That was eight, ten years ago. D’you see?” “I don’t ‘see’ anything.” “But you do Hurrell Oaks—you’re, you’re really all ‘for’ him, I mean? So you’d adore it. It’s pathetic, too. Though it is funny!” she cried, avid to tell me more about whatever “it” was. But the inevitable shift in table talk veered us apart at that moment; and it wasn’t until after the long meal was over that we came together again, and could choose a quiet corner away from interruptions. “Here goes, now,” she began, “if you’re ready?” ――――