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“But, I beg your pardon,” said Professor Maturin, as I rose to say good-night, “I did not mean to take the stump; and yet, I believe that it is good sometimes to give utterance to these things which all of us feel. Nothing revives the vigor of one’s spirit like the conscious realization of being in harmony with fundamental law.”

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I HAVE never seen my friend Professor Maturin in better health or spirits than he was when I met him the other evening at the Athenaeum. He had just finished dinner, and indicated that he was in the mood for talk by ordering two of the Cuban vegueras that he keeps in a private box at the club, for use on special occasions.

“I am just back from the best vacation I have ever had,” he began. “I have been spending a month with a friend up the river, at a most delightful place, built and planted about fifty years ago by his father, from memories of the villas about Florence, where he once lived. The house has window balconies, a tower, a loggia opening west and south, and a red-flagged terrace with a stone balustrade, all complete. Below this slopes a wide lawn, then many flowering shrubs, and finally splendid groupings of trees between and over which you may see the river, here at its widest. The hills beyond and the highlands to the north complete the picture.