cular
thread of memory, without any uneasiness about the innumerable skeins
that made up the tissue of his record of a lifetime.

When the young doctor returned, he found him still seated where he had
left him, one hand over his eyes, the other on his knee. As he
sat--for the doctor watched him from the door for a moment--he moved
and replaced either hand at intervals, with implied distress in the
movements. They gave the impression of constant attempt constantly
baffled. The doctor, a shrewd-seeming young man with an attentive pale
eye, and very fair hair, seemed to understand.

"Let me recommend you to be quiet and rest. Be quite quiet. You will
be all right when you have slept on it. Mrs. Nightingale--that's the
lady you saw just now; this is her house--will see that you are
properly taken care of."

Then the man tried to speak; it was with an effort.

"I wish to thank--I must thank----"

"Never mind thanks yet. All in good time. Now, what do you think you
can take--to eat or drink?"

"Nothing--nothing to eat or drink."

"Well, you know best. However, there's tea coming; perhaps you'll go
so far as a cup of tea? You would be the better for it."

* * * * *

Rosalind junior, or Sally, slept in the back bedroom on the
first-floor--that is to say, if we ignore the basement floor and call
the one flush with the street-door step the ground-floor. We believe
we are right in doing so. Rosalind senior, the mother, slept in the
front one. It wasn't too late for tea, they had decided, and thereupon
they had gone upstairs to revise and correct.

After a certain amount of slopping and splashing in the back room,
uncorroborated by any in the front, Sally called out to her mother, on
the disjointed lines of talk in real life:

"I like this soap! Have you a safety-pin?" Whereto her mother replied,
speaking rather drowsily and perfunctorily:

"Yes, but you must come and get it."

"It's so nice and oily. It's not from Cattley's?"

"Yes, it is."

"I thought it was. Where's the pin?" At this point she came into her
mother's room, covering her slightly _retrousse_ nose with her
fresh-washed hands, to enjoy the aroma of Cattley's soap.

"In the little pink saucer. Only don't mess my things about."

"Headache, mammy dear?" For her mother was lying back on the bed, with
her eyes closed. The speaker left her hands over her nostrils as she
spoke, to do full justice to the soap, pausing an i