"So much the better. This is the idea. When I was younger, I used to have a little make-believe theatre, with miniature actors that I cut out of paper. The Abbe overheard me one day rehearsing them in a little comedy I had written, and offered to act with me whatever pieces required only two characters. We began with a piece containing a shepherd and a shepherdess, and, from acting that, we went a step farther, and continued to pretend that we were the shepherds, carrying out the illusion without premeditated speech or action. The Abbe had done similar things at Sceaux, in the time of the Duchess du Maine." "I have read of the French nobility having amused themselves in that way," said Dick. "Yes, when all the world was reading 'Astree,' and a hundred years later, when Watteau and the opera brought shepherds into fashion again," replied this youthful prodigy of information. "It was a charming amusement, was it not? But the trouble was, when we attempted it, that no amount of imagination could transform the Abbe, with his 'History of the Two Indies' in mind, into a shepherd. You understand, I knew him so well. But you, of whom I know nothing, and who have come into my view in so strange a manner--" "More like a river god than like a shepherd," commented Dick. "Oh, shepherds often fell into brooks! Nothing could be more in character. Well, we are to play that you are a shepherd called--not Celadon; we sha'n't take our names from d'Urfe,--let me think--" "Silvius," suggested Dick, remembering the shepherds of Arden, in Shakespeare. "Yes, Silvius is a good name. And I shall be Amaryllis." "And where are the sheep?" "We shall have to imagine the sheep at present, though I can obtain some easily enough. Well, you shall come every day in a boat, in the afternoon, and I will be waiting somewhere near the place at which you landed this morning." "And must I come as wet as I was this morning?" "No. You shall be a dry shepherd hereafter. Come about two o'clock, if the weather is clear; but remember, I am not to know where you come from, or whither you go when you leave, any more than you are to know who I am. Now, that is all settled! Till to-morrow, Silvius!" "But how am I to get home to-day? Would you have me swim?" "No. Alphonse will show you out by the gate to-day, and you can go by land to your lodge,--remember, shepherds dwell in lodges. But after this you will come in a boat, and leave it at the shore to return by. So, till to-morrow, Silvius!" "Till to-morrow, Amaryllis!" said Dick, with a bow not very shepherd-like. Obedient to a word from the girl, Alphonse, who had heeded nothing of her talk if he had heard it, conducted Dick past the house and through more of the park, to a gate, which opened on a tree-lined avenue. Dick turned to the left, and a walk of about a mile and a half brought him to St. Denis, where he dined and spent the rest of the day thinking of his odd adventure.