“Ambrosia!” said Benis Spence, unconscious that he spoke aloud.

“Balm of Gilead,” said a practical voice beside him.  “It smells like that in the bud, you know.”

“Does it?” The professor’s tone was dreamy.  “Honey and wine—­that’s what it’s like—­honey and wine in the wilderness!  You didn’t tell me it would be like this,” he added, turning abruptly to his companion of the night before.

“How could I tell what it would be like—­to you?” asked the girl.  “It’s different for everyone.  I’ve known people stand here and think of nothing but their breakfast.”

At the word “breakfast” (which had temporarily slipped from his vocabulary) the famished professor wheeled so quickly that his knee twisted.  Miss Farr smiled, her cool and too-understanding smile.

“There’s something to eat,” she said.  “Come in.”

She did not wait for him but walked off quickly.  The professor followed more slowly.  The path, even the front path, was rough (he had noticed that last night); but the cottage, seen now with the glamour of its outlook still in his eyes, seemed not quite so impossible as he had thought.  The grace of early spring lay upon it and all around.  True, it was small and unpainted and in bad repair, but its smallness and its brownness seemed not out of keeping with the mountain-side.  Its narrow veranda was railed by unbarked branches from the cedars.  Its walls were rough and weather-beaten, its few windows, broad and low.  The door was open and led directly into the living room whence his hostess had preceded him.

The marvellous scent of the morning was everywhere.  The room, as he went in, seemed full of it.  Not such a bad room, either, not nearly so comfortless as he had thought last night.  There was a fireplace, for instance, a real fireplace of cobble-stones, for use, not ornament; a long table stood in the middle of the room, an old fashioned sofa sprawled beneath one of the windows.  There was a dresser at one end with open shelves for china and, at the other, a book-case, also open, filled with old and miscellaneous books. . . .

And, best and most encouraging of all, there was breakfast on the table.

“I told Li Ho to give you eggs,” said Miss Farr.  “It is the one thing we can be sure of having fresh.  Do you like eggs?”

The professor liked eggs.  He had never liked eggs so well before, except once in Flanders—­he looked up to thank his hostess, but she had not waited.  Nevertheless the breakfast was very good.  Not until he had finished the last crumb of it did he notice that the comfort of the place was more apparent than real.  The table tipped whenever you touched it.  The chair upon which he sat had lost an original leg and didn’t take kindly to its substitute.  The china was thick and chipped.  The walls were unfinished and draughty, the ceiling obviously leaked.  There had been some effort to keep the place livable, for the faded curtains were at least clean and the floor swept—­but the blight of decay and poverty lay hopelessly upon it all.