st
asked him one day what was the best thing in life, and he answered: 'For
a young man's mind to be old, and an old man's heart to be young.' The
priest asked him how that could be. And he said: 'Good food, a good
woman to teach him when he is young, and a child to teach him when he is
old.' Then the priest said: 'What about the Church and the love of
God?' The little man thought a little, and then said: 'Well, it is the
same--the love of man and woman came first in the world, then the child,
then God in the garden.' Afterwards he made a little speech of good-bye
to us, for we were going to the south while he remained in a fork of the
Far Off River. It was like some ancient blessing: that we should always
have a safe tent and no sorrow as we travelled; that we should always
have a cache for our food, and food for our cache; that we should never
find a tree that would not give sap, nor a field that would not grow
grain; that our bees should not freeze in winter, and that the honey
should be thick, and the comb break like snow in the teeth; that we keep
hearts like the morning, and that we come slow to the Four Corners where
man says Good-night."

Each of the other men present wondered at that instant if Frank Armour
would, or could, have said this with the same feelings two months
before. He seemed almost transformed.

"It reminds me," said the general, "of an inscription from an Egyptian
monument which an officer of the First put into English verse for me
years ago:

"Fair be the garden where their loves shall dwell,
Safe be the highway where their feet may go,
Rich be the fields wherein their hands may toil,
The fountains many where their good wines flow.
Full be their harvest-bins with corn and oil,
To sorrow may their humour be a foil;
Quick be their hearts all wise delights to know,
Tardy their footsteps to the gate Farewell."

There was a moment's silence after he had finished, and then there was
noise without, a sound of pattering feet; the door flew open, and in ran
a little figure in white--young Richard in his bed-gown, who had broken
away from his nurse, and had made his way to the billiard-room, where he
knew his uncle had gone.

The child's face was flashing with mischief and adventure. He ran in
among the group, and stretched out his hands with a little fighting air.
His uncle Richard made a step towards him, but he ran back; his father
made as if to take him