ast the great change comes it is
effected quite calmly. There is no indecent haste, no scrambling to
put a semblance of finish to the incomplete, as there is in the hurried
death of cities. Young faces grow softly mellow without those lines and
anxious crow's-feet that mar the features of the middle-aged, who, to
earn their daily bread or to kill the tedium of their lives, find it
necessary to dwell in streets.

"Loo's home again," men told each other at "The Black Sailor"; and the
women, who discussed the matter in the village street, had little to add
to this bare piece of news. There was nothing unusual about it. Indeed,
it was customary for Farlingford men to come home again. They always
returned, at last, from wide wanderings, which a limited conversational
capacity seemed to deprive of all interest. Those that stayed at home
learnt a few names, and that was all.

"Where are ye now from, Willum?" the newly returned sailor would be
kindly asked, with the sideward jerk of the head.

"A'm now from Valparaiso."

And that was all that there was to be said about Valparaiso and the
experiences of this circumnavigator. Perhaps it was not considered
good form to inquire further into that which was, after all, his own
business. If you ask an East Anglian questions he will tell you nothing;
if you do not inquire he will tell you less.

No one, therefore, asked Barebone any questions. More especially is it
considered, in seafaring communities, impolite to make inquiry into your
neighbour's misfortune. If a man have the ill luck to lose his ship, he
may well go through the rest of his life without hearing the mention
of her name. It was understood in Farlingford that Loo Barebone had
resigned his post on "The Last Hope" in order to claim a heritage in
France. He had returned home, and was living quietly at Maidens Grave
Farm with Mrs. Clubbe. It was, therefore, to be presumed that he had
failed in his quest. This was hardly a matter for surprise to such as
had inherited from their forefathers a profound distrust in Frenchmen.

The brief February days followed each other with that monotony, marked
by small events, that quickly lays the years aside. Loo lingered on,
with a vague indecision in his mind which increased as the weeks passed
by and the spell of the wide marsh-lands closed round his soul. He
took up again those studies which the necessity of earning a living had
interrupted years before, and Septimus Marvin, who