proceedings in bankruptcy connected with that unusual name? He must
look into the matter. And, talking about bankruptcy--oh! how bad his
lumbago was to-night!--poor Thomas Hart, of Three Ash Farm, was going
to be sold up. Dear, dear! On every side, look where one would, nothing
but decline and calamity. What was England coming to? Day by day he had
expected to see the failure of Sherwood Brothers; how had they escaped
the common doom of sugar refiners? Free trade, free trade; all very
fine in theory, but look at its results on corn and sugar. For his own
part he favoured a policy of moderate protection.

All this was not more than Will had foreseen. It would be annoying if
Mr. Turnbull ultimately took an adverse view of his proposal; in that
case, though his mother was quite free to manage her property as she
chose, Will felt that he should hot venture to urge his scheme against
the lawyer's advice, and money must be sought elsewhere. A few days
would decide the matter. As he went upstairs to bed, he dismissed
worries from his mind.

The old quiet, the old comfort of home. Not a sound but that of
pattering rain in the still night. As always, the room smelt of
lavender, blended with that indescribable fragrance which comes of
extreme cleanliness in an old country house. But for changed wall paper
and carpet, everything was as Will remembered it ever since he could
remember anything at all; the same simple furniture, the same white
curtains, the same pictures, the same little hanging shelf, with books
given to him in childhood. He thought of the elder brother who had died
at school, and lay in the little churchyard far away. His only dark
memory, that of the poor boy's death after a very short illness, before
that other blow which made him fatherless.

The earlier retrospect was one of happiness unbroken; for all childish
sorrows lost themselves in the very present sense of peace and love
enveloping those far-away years. His parents' life, as he saw it then,
as in reflection he saw it now, remained an ideal; he did not care to
hope for himself, or to imagine, any other form of domestic
contentment. As a child, he would have held nothing less conceivable
than a moment's discord between father and mother, and manhood's
meditation did but confirm him in the same view.

The mutual loyalty of kindred hearts and minds--that was the best life
had to give. And Will's thoughts turned once more to Norbert Franks;
he, poor fel