There came a day in August when Meredith took the convalescent from the hospital in a victoria, and installed him in his own home. Harkless's clothes hung on his big frame limply; however, there was a drift of light in his eyes as they drove slowly through the pretty streets of Rouen. The bandages and splints and drugs and swathings were all gone now, and his sole task was to gather strength. The thin face was sallow no longer; it was the color of evening shadows; indeed he lay among the cushions seemingly no more than a gaunt shadow of the late afternoon, looking old and gray and weary. They rolled along abusing each other, John sometimes gratefully threatening his friend with violence. The victoria passed a stone house with wide lawns and an inhospitable air of wealth and importunate rank; over the sward two peacocks swung, ambulating like caravals in a green sea; and one expected a fine lady to come smiling and glittering from the door. Oddly enough, though he had never seen the place before, it struck Harkless with a sense of familiarity. “Who lives there?” he asked abruptly. “Who lives there? On the left? Why that--that is the Sherwood place,” Meredith answered, in a tone which sounded as if he were not quite sure of it, but inclined to think his information correct. Harkless relapsed into silence. Meredith's home was a few blocks further up the same street; a capacious house in the Western fashion of the Seventies. In front, on the lawn, there was a fountain with a leaping play of water; maples and shrubbery were everywhere; and here and there stood a stiff sentinel of Lombardy poplar. It was all cool and incongruous and comfortable; and, on the porch, sheltered from publicity by a multitude of palms and flowering plants, a white-jacketed negro appeared with a noble smile and a more important tray, whereon tinkled bedewed glasses and a crystal pitcher, against whose sides the ice clinked sweetly. There was a complement of straws. When they had helped him to an easy chair on the porch, Harkless whistled luxuriously. “Ah, my bachelor!” he exclaimed, as he selected a straw. “'Who would fardels bear?'” rejoined Mr. Meredith. Then came to the other a recollection of an auburn-haired ball player on whom the third strike had once been called while his eyes wandered tenderly to the grandstand, where the prettiest girl of that commencement week was sitting. “Have you forgot the 'Indian Princess'?” he asked. “You're a dull old person,” Tom laughed. “Haven't you discovered that 'tis they who forget us? And why shouldn't they? Do _we_ remember well?--anybody except just us two, I mean, of course.” “I've a notion we do, sometimes.” The other set his glass on the tray, and lit his cigarette. “Yes; when we're unsuccessful. Then I think we do.” “That may be true.” “Of course it is. If a lady wishes to make an impression on me that is worth making, let her let me make none on her.” “You think it is always our vanity?”