The girl's eye kindled with delight as it sought the far horizons, the misty parapets gleaming up through the golden air; she was one who found dear and beautiful this gray land, silent and ensunned. She flung up her hand exultingly.
"Isn't it wonderful, John Wesley? Do you know what it makes me think of? This:
"'… Magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faëry lands forlorn!'
"Think, John! This country hasn't changed a bit since the day Columbus set out from Spain."
"How true! Fine old bird, Columbus—he saw America first. Great head he showed, too, getting himself named Christopher. Otherwise you might have said, 'the day Antony discovered Cleopatra'—or something like that. Wise old Chris!"
Stella's eyes narrowed reflectively.
"John Wesley, you've been reading! You never used to know anything about Mark Antony."
"I cribbed that remark from Billy Beebe and he swiped it from a magazine. I don't know much about Mark, even this very yet. Good old easy Mark!"
"That's the how of it. You've been absorbing knowledge from those pardners of yours. Your talk shows it. You're changed a lot—that way. Every other way you're the same old Wes!"
"Now, that sounds better!" said Pringle in his most complacent tones.
"I want to talk about myself, always, Stella May Vorhis; we've come
thirty miles and I've heard Christopher Foy, Foy, Foy, all the way!
It's exasperating! It's sickening!"