brought the booty back. Come," said Fairfax, "there's the man that
shuts us out and the shells in, and we must go." And they were all three
at the park gate in the early twilight before the children asked him--

"Cousin Antony, where have you been all these days?"

* * * * *

He saw the children to their own door, and on the way little Gardiner
complained that his shoes were tight, so his cousin carried him, and
nearly carried Bella, who, linking her arm firmly in his, walked close
to him, and, unobserved by Antony, with sympathetic gallantry, copied
his limp all the way home.

Their companionship had been of the most perfect. He learned where they
roller skated, and which were the cracks to avoid in the pavement, and
which were the treasure lots. He saw where, in dreary excavations, where
plantain and goatweed grew, Bella found stores of quartz and flints, and
where she herded the mangy goat when the Irish ragpickers were out
ragpicking.

Under his burden of Gardiner Antony's heart had, nevertheless, grown
light, and before they had reached the house he had murmured to them, in
his rich singing voice, Spartacus' address to the gladiators, and where
it says: "Oh, Rome, Rome, thou hast been a tender nurse to me; thou hast
given to the humble shepherd boy muscles of iron and a heart of
steel,"--where these eloquent words occurred he was obliged to stand
still on Madison Avenue, with the little boy in his arms, to give the
lines their full impressiveness.

Once deposited on the steps, where Fairfax looked to see rise the
effigies of the ashes his uncle had ordered scattered, Gardiner seemed
hardly able to crawl.

Trevelyan encouraged him: "Brace up, Gardiner, be a man."

And the child had mildly responded that "his bones were tired." His
sister supported him maternally and helped him up, nodding to Antony
that she would look after her little brother, and Antony heard the boy
say--

"Six and six are twelve, Bella, and you're both, and I'm only one of
them. How can you expect...?"

Antony expected by this time nothing.

And when that night the eager Miss Whitcombs handed him a letter from
his aunt, with the heading 780, Madison Avenue, in gold, he eagerly tore
it open.

"My dear Antony," the letter ran, "the children should have drawing
lessons, Gardiner especially draws constantly; I think he has talent.
Will you come and teach them three times a week? I don't know about
remun