e of humour would have tripped me up, I know, and I should have
come a cropper.

Just as coffee was brought in the squire asked me if I would sing for
him, "Oh wert thou in the cauld blast." I saw he really wanted it, so
I found the music, though I had to choke back the lump in my throat. I
had never sung it since that memorable evening when we sat
together--dad and I--on the eve of his death, and he had begged for it
with his eyes. "I know, dad, dear," I said; "I must close with your
favourite," and he whispered, "For the last time, lassie." And so it
had been.

The tears fell as I sang, and the Hall and its inmates faded from my
view. The Cynic must have left my side, for when at length I ventured
to look round he was across the room examining a curio. But the squire
rose and thanked me in a very low voice, and his own eyes were bright
with tears that did not fall.

Soon after, the vicar's carriage came, and the Cynic accepted the offer
of a lift to the cross-roads. I left at the same time, but the squire
insisted on accompanying me. Under cover of the darkness he remarked:

"That was my wife's song. It gave me much pleasure and some pain to
hear it again; but it hurt you?"

I told him why, and he said quite simply, "Then we have another bond in
common."

"Another?" I inquired, but he did not explain; instead he asked:

"How fares your ideal? Have you met him of the cloven foot in
Windyridge yet?"

"I fear I brought him with me," I replied, "and I fancy I have seen his
footprints in the village. All the same, I do not yet regret my
decision. I am very happy here and have forgotten some of my London
nightmares, and am no longer 'tossed by storm and flood.' My Inner
Self and I are on the best of terms."

He sighed. "Far be it from me to discourage you; and indeed I am glad
that the moors have brought you peace. To brood over wrongs we cannot
put right is morbid and unhealthy; it saps our vitality and makes us
unfit for the conflicts we have to wage. And yet how easy it is for us
to let this consideration lead us to the bypath meadows of indifference
and self-indulgence. You remember Tennyson:

"'Is it well that while we range with Science, glorying in the Time,
City children soak and blacken soul and sense in city slime?'

"I have led a strenuous life, and taken some part in the battle, but
now I have degenerated into a Lotus-eater, with no heart for the fray,
'Lame and old and past