less it understood nothing, yet to utter loneliness the soft movement felt like sympathy. John moved a caressing hand, then raised his head. For a little he and the creature communed in silence, looking into each other's eyes, safe from incautious comment or too curious kind inquiry, seeing little but the afterglow of sunset. There were two old fruit trees at the back, all that was left of the beautiful garden that once surrounded the house. They stood clear, the villas behind sloped away so that the upper branches were outlined against the sky. They were in blossom now, delicate colours sharp against the sky, where the pure pale after-light still lingered. Some blackbird that mistook the two trees for country was singing a last good-night. John heard it, and, looking round, saw the trees and the rosy twilight, and for a moment his eyes grew dim. At least this was left him. It still was a world of sunsets, even in the city; of fruit blooms, of autumn glows, even in crowded streets; and sweet wild promises of springtime for old men and for young. This still was left, and not himself or another could take it from him. Thank God for that!

The sacrifice was made, but that was the beginning rather than the end of the difficulty. John found his next steps almost as hard as his last, for, though they were smaller matters, they depended on other people. To begin with, the family, not knowing about the sacrifice, mistook his intentions and rather resented his efforts; there were some of them who undoubtedly would rather have him out of the way writing. Then, too, he was shy and awkward; he found it difficult to make overtures, and more difficult still to re-make them when he was rebuffed. It cannot be said that he received much encouragement. Sybil was busy getting her trousseau; she probably never even realised that he was any different or trying to do any differently; for so soon as the trousseau was ready she was married, and sailed for the Cape, amidst the lamentations of her mother. Katie, too, was busy at that time studying geology, perhaps with a view to the Professor, for before long her engagement to him was announced, also amidst the lamentations of her mother, who thought she might have done better. She was married in the following autumn, and went to New Zealand for a protracted and geological honeymoon. Clara, it is true, seemed at first inclined to appreciate John's overtures; but finding they did not bring her much in the way of gaiety, she soon grew tired of him and snubbed him back to his original position.

With Mrs. Feversham John was not much more successful, partly because they mutually misunderstood one another and partly because he so often overlooked small things, and at first at all events could not realise that they made the sum total of the important in life to her.

There remained, however, the five boys, and John comforted himself, whatever else befell, he could do his duty to them. They did not want him any more than the others, and he knew even less how to approach them or how to begin his self-appointed task; in despair he just seized on the first definite thing that occurred to him and did that. He took them to church; they did not want to go, but he had a vague idea it might do them good. And if it did nothing else it insured that for an hour and a half each week they were quiet and considered things and conformed to someone's notion of decent behaviour. After the first few weeks he began to notice their outside appearance, and took it upon himself to see they were clean and tidy when they did go to church; which also they did not care about. He spent his evenings superintending their lessons-Katie was too busy now to do it; he recalled his forgotten Latin, and on his journeys to and from town relearnt Euclid so as to help those who had stuck in the first book. He began to give attention to their grievances too: studied the matters under dispute and quelled the riots which occasionally occurred, after interrogation and with a strict attention to justice. Later he did his best to moderate their language and otherwise superintend their moral welfare, even to the extent of calling in the old-fashioned remedy of the birch, which, to their credit it must be said, they thought quite fair and accepted in a sportsmanlike spirit when they could not honestly evade it in the same. By November, when Katie was married, he had begun to have a certain amount of control; even he, disheartened by many disappointments, could see that. But it seemed to him he was nothing but a necessary evil to his brothers; at first he found it very hard to be anything else, for he found it very difficult to enter nto their playtime. But by slow degrees he managed even that : his life was so desperately empty he craved for something to fil it, and his interest in them, their schoolfellows, and any trifle they would tell him was so genuine as, after a time, to attract confidence. Besides, he soon found there were definite things he could do even here: on rare half-holidays he could take them to the pit at a pantomime or a circus. Oh! the excitement of

getting in, the difficulty of not losing one of the five in doing it! He could remember their birthdays too, and make a festival of Christmas. He did make a festival of that first Christmas after the ash tree came down-a wonderful, cheap Christmas, with little money and much thought, Clara and her mother away, and riotous games in the shabby old house.

And so he went, feeling his way, seeking duty, only duty, till by degrees he began to lose all aptitude for anything else; till, lo! it became pleasure to him, the one thing in his life. Gradually he came to live for that only, for the boys, their work, their play, their ambition and success. Month in, month out, year in, year out, nothing else much troubled him, nothing else at all gave him pleasure. When he discovered Francis' real aptitude for literature he was a happy man, perhaps almost as happy as when he had discovered his own; he felt that fate had been kinder to him than he deserved. Inly he determined that Francis should have all the training possible to get, all the encouragement possible to give; in him, if it could be, the dream-people should live and not die. Thus things went, not for months but for years.

There were fifteen years of bondage; then came release. Of course the bonds had slackened a little before then, as far as immediate money pressure was concerned. Uncle John's estimate of his nephew had gradually risen, and with justice; and the nephew's salary had risen too; but improved income had only meant greater advantages for the boys. Now, however, at the end of fifteen years, old John died, leaving young John (he was forty) sole possessor of the business and much stored wealth besides. The yoke was off at last.

At last! He sat alone in the little bedroom which had seen so many struggles first to write, and afterwards far more terrible. struggles not to write. The ink-love had died hard, how hard no one knew; over and over again in the years which were gone the stump of the ash tree had sprouted and put forth twigs seeking life; and over and over again he had cut them away. But by degrees they had grown less frequent and weaker, and at last ceased altogether. The little bare room had seen all this and much besides. He looked round him now and tried to realise what had been and what freedom meant. He stretched his limbs as a man who puts down a burden; and, stretching, he looked at them almost unconsciously, and somehow became aware that his boots were neat and worn, that his coat-sleeves were neat and

worn, that there was about him somehow an all-pervading air at once neat and worn. It filled him with a curious feeling of pain, and somehow surprise. He rose and looked in the small glass that stood upon his dressing-table. The face that looked back at him. was a grave, kindly face, lined and marked a little, and with hair about the temples thinning and turning grey. There was nothing at all striking in the face, nothing to make it unlike hundreds of other faces that one can see any day, nothing that suggested that this man was not as other men. Perhaps a certain air of patient resignation, but certainly no touch of the divine fire-it was neat and worn too. John had got used to that face and the change that had come so gradually; it ought not to have startled him as it did. He ought to have forgotten the face of fifteen years ago, restless, hopeful, young. He had forgotten till now, but now he remembered, and somehow almost expected to see it back. There were other things he expected back too—was sure would come in the new leisure which was dawning: the old nature, the old tastes, the old powers, the dream-people whom he had slain.

But, alas! they did not come; the leisure was there, but not the power to use it. His back had so long been bent to the burden that he could not quite straighten it now. His ash tree, his beautiful tree with its all-shading branches and greedy roots, had been cut down; it had been lopped and chopped, burnt with fire, dug out, destroyed, there was but a half-charred stump left, a landmark few but he could see, without life or hope of budding. It was dead past all recall. He did not believe it, he expected life to come back with leisure, he sought to recall it; and when it did not come he sought again and again—no one knew how he sought. He would not accept defeat any more than he accepted defeat in his earlier struggles. But this was another matter and one beyond his control. 'I must give it time,' he said; 'it will come in time. I have forgotten, but I can relearn.'

But it did not come, it never came again; at last he knew it, for he could not deceive himself. The love of the craftsman wa still his, even though the skill was gone; he could not mistake the counterfeit for the real, and the real was gone from him. And when he knew this for the first and last time, he strove no more. but quietly put the whole from him and laid away the little old inkpot which had come out again, as a mother lays by her dead baby's shoes.

For the family, of course, the fortune was a considerable blessing. The married sisters felt the advantage-they were all married now, Clara too; she had bestowed herself rather late on a poor curate, who was the poorer for the bestowal. The boys benefited much; they were men now, even Francis and Hugh were almost men, but the money helped them all a little. They were mostly out in the world, some abroad, some with homes of their own; Francis, however, was still at home, and for him and in him John rejoiced. For him at least the fortune had not come too late-Francis should travel, Francis should work only at the congenial work of literature, Francis should have what he himself had dreamed of, Francis should be great.

And Francis had it all and did it all, and more than fulfilled the hopes and ambitions. And some people find this surprisingreally remained much attached to John even though he did not understand the legend of the cabbage garden. He did not, of course, always continue to live at home with John; it would have been inconvenient all round, he said-and John acquiesced. So when he began to be famous and independent he had chambers in town; not quite the part where John had them long ago, further west. And John and his mother lived together some way out of town. They had a beautiful garden and many pear trees, which pleased John, and a brougham, which pleased his mother; and usually one or other of the daughters or their children to stay with them, for Mrs. Feversham still found John poor company. And John was content. Only perhaps sometimes-not very often, just now and then-he found himself thinking rather hungrily of the old days of cramped means and circus pits, of Euclid and face-washing and church-going and young brothers in whom he lived. But quickly he would call himself to order and remember the other children, the nieces and nephews who were all so absurdly, astonishingly, and unreasonably fond of Uncle John-Uncle John who was never too tired or too busy for children's sorrows and joys, never too wise or too hard for youth's wrongs, hopes, and distresses-Uncle John whom Divine Wisdom saved from the dream-people to bestow thus upon the real.

The cabbage-grower had said he failed when he tried to grow roses in his parable garden-the roses of loves and joys beside the humble cabbages of duty-and perhaps he did. Yet the roses seem to have come there; thickly they came, flourishing and