"There--stop now," said Eric, "and let's sit out and talk until we see
some of 'the fiery a'es and o'es of light' which he talks of."
"I'd no idea Shakspeare was such immensely jolly reading," remarked
Wildney naively. "I shall take to reading him through when I get home."
"Do you remember, Eric," said Montagu, "how Rose used to chaff us in old
days for our ignorance of literature, and how indignant we used to be
when he asked if we'd ever heard of an obscure person called William
Shakspeare?"
"Yes, very well," answered Eric, laughing heartily. And in this strain
they continued to chat merrily, while the ladies enjoyed listening to
their school-boy mirth.
"What a perfectly delicious evening. It's almost enough to make me wish
to live," said Eric.
He did not often speak thus; and it made them sad. But Eric half sang,
half murmured to himself, a hymn with which his mother's sweet voice had
made him familiar in their cottage-home at Ellan:--
"There is a calm for those who weep,
A rest for weary pilgrims found;
They softly lie, and sweetly sleep,
Low in the ground.
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