quiet glow of evening showed
him in their faces no sign of rancour.

He sat near them at the table and asked where his father and mother
were. One answered:

--Goneboro toboro lookboro atboro aboro houseboro.

Still another removal! A boy named Fallon in Belvedere had often asked
him with a silly laugh why they moved so often. A frown of scorn
darkened quickly his forehead as he heard again the silly laugh of the
questioner.

He asked:

--Why are we on the move again if it's a fair question?

--Becauseboro theboro landboro lordboro willboro putboro usboro outboro.

The voice of his youngest brother from the farther side of the
fireplace began to sing the air OFT IN THE STILLY NIGHT. One by one the
others took up the air until a full choir of voices was singing. They
would sing so for hours, melody after melody, glee after glee, till the
last pale light died down on the horizon, till the first dark night
clouds came forth and night fell.

He waited for some moments, listening, before he too took up the air
with them. He was listening with pain of spirit to the overtone of
weariness behind their frail fresh innocent voices. Even before they
set out on life's journey they seemed weary already of the way.

He heard the choir of voices in the kitchen echoed and multiplied
through an endless reverberation of the choirs of endless generations
of children and heard in all the echoes an echo also of the recurring
note of weariness and pain. All seemed weary of life even before
entering upon it. And he remembered that Newman had heard this note
also in the broken lines of Virgil, GIVING UTTERANCE, LIKE THE VOICE OF
NATURE HERSELF, TO THAT PAIN AND WEARINESS YET HOPE OF BETTER THINGS
WHICH HAS BEEN THE EXPERIENCE OF HER CHILDREN IN EVERY TIME.

* * * * *

He could wait no longer.

From the door of Byron's public-house to the gate of Clontarf Chapel,
from the gate of Clontail Chapel to the door of Byron's public-house
and then back again to the chapel and then back again to the public-house
he had paced slowly at first, planting his steps scrupulously in
the spaces of the patchwork of the footpath, then timing their fall to
the fall of verses. A full hour had passed since his father had gone in
with Dan Crosby, the tutor, to find out for him something about the
university. For a full hour he had paced up and down, waiting: but he
could wait no longer.

He set off abruptly for the Bull, walking rapidly lest his