a knight dance over their borders by the shaking. 'I was musing
on those words as applicable to a strange course I am steering--
but enough of that. I am delighted with you, Mr. Smith, for it is
so seldom in this desert that I meet with a man who is gentleman
and scholar enough to continue a quotation, however trite it may
be.'

'I also apply the words to myself,' said Stephen quietly.

'You? The last man in the world to do that, I should have
thought.'

'Come,' murmured Elfride poutingly, and insinuating herself
between them, 'tell me all about it. Come, construe, construe!'

Stephen looked steadfastly into her face, and said slowly, and in
a voice full of a far-off meaning that seemed quaintly premature
in one so young:

'Quae finis WHAT WILL BE THE END, aut OR, quod stipendium WHAT
FINE, manet me AWAITS ME? Effare SPEAK OUT; luam I WILL PAY, cum
fide WITH FAITH, jussas poenas THE PENALTY REQUIRED.'

The vicar, who had listened with a critical compression of the
lips to this school-boy recitation, and by reason of his imperfect
hearing had missed the marked realism of Stephen's tone in the
English words, now said hesitatingly: 'By the bye, Mr. Smith (I
know you'll excuse my curiosity), though your translation was
unexceptionably correct and close, you have a way of pronouncing
your Latin which to me seems most peculiar. Not that the