rabs that very night for supper, and went in to table with the
shining eyes of one who is determined to conquer or die, and the crabs
conquered, and he died. "He was a just man," said the neighbours, except
that nearest neighbour, formerly his best friend, "and might have been a
great one had he so chosen." And they buried him with profound respect,
and the sunshine came into our home life with a burst, and the birds
were not the only creatures that sang, and the arbour, from having been
a temple of Delphic utterances, sank into a home for slugs.

Musing on the strangeness of life, and on the invariable ultimate
triumph of the insignificant and small over the important and vast,
illustrated in this instance by the easy substitution in the arbour of
slugs for grandfathers, I went slowly round the next bend of the
path, and came to the broad walk along the south side of the high wall
dividing the flower garden from the kitchen garden, in which sheltered
position my father had had his choicest flowers. Here the cousins had
been at work, and all the climbing roses that clothed the wall with
beauty were gone, and some very neat fruit trees, tidily nailed up at
proper intervals, reigned in their stead. Evidently the cousins knew
the value of this warm aspect, for in the border beneath, filled in my
father's time in this month of November with the wallflowers that were
to perfume the walk in spring, there was a thick crop of--I stooped down
close to make sure--yes, a thick crop of radishes. My eyes filled
with tears at the sight of those radishes, and it is probably the only
occasion on record on which radishes have made anybody cry. My dear
father, whom I so passionately loved, had in his turn passionately
loved this particular border, and spent the spare moments of a busy life
enjoying the flowers that grew in it. He had no time himself for a more
near acquaintance with the delights of gardening than directing what
plants were to be used, but found rest from his daily work strolling up
and down here, or sitting smoking as close to the flowers as possible.
"It is the Purest of Humane pleasures, it is the Greatest Refreshment
to the Spirits of Man," he would quote (for he read other things besides
the Kreuzzeitung), looking round with satisfaction on reaching this
fragrant haven after a hot day in the fields. Well, the cousins did not
think so. Less fanciful, and more sensible as they probably would have
said, their position pl