ed round the legs of their chairs
while they ate, and their "So longs," and their "Old Beans," and their
laughter--girls who gave him the shudders whenever he thought of Fleur
in contact with them; and the hard-eyed, capable, older women who
managed life and gave him the shudders too. No! his old aunts, if they
never opened their minds, their eyes, or very much their windows, at
least had manners, and a standard, and reverence for past and future.

With rather a choky feeling he closed the door and went tiptoeing
up-stairs. He looked in at a place on the way: H'm! in perfect order of
the eighties, with a sort of yellow oilskin paper on the walls. At the
top of the stairs he hesitated between four doors. Which of them was
Timothy's? And he listened. A sound as of a child slowly dragging a
hobby-horse about, came to his ears. That must be Timothy! He tapped,
and a door was opened by Smither very red in the face.

Mr. Timothy was taking his walk, and she had not been able to get him
to attend. If Mr. Soames would come into the back room, he could see
him through the door.

Soames went into the back room and stood watching.

The last of the old Forsytes was on his feet, moving with the most
impressive slowness, and an air of perfect concentration on his own
affairs, backward and forward between the foot of his bed and the
window, a distance of some twelve feet. The lower part of his square
face, no longer clean-shaven, was covered with snowy beard clipped as
short as it could be, and his chin looked as broad as his brow where
the hair was also quite white, while nose and cheeks and brow were a
good yellow. One hand held a stout stick, and the other grasped the
skirt of his Jaeger dressing-gown, from under which could be seen his
bed-socked ankles and feet thrust into Jaeger slippers. The expression
on his face was that of a crossed child, intent on something that he
has not got. Each time he turned he stumped the stick, and then dragged
it, as if to show that he could do without it.

"He still looks strong," said Soames under his breath.

"Oh! yes, sir. You should see him take his bath--it's wonderful; he
does enjoy it so."

Those quite loud words gave Soames an insight. Timothy had resumed his
babyhood.

"Does he take any interest in things generally?" he said, also aloud.

"Oh! yes, sir; his food and his Will. It's quite a sight to see him
turn it over and over, not to read it, of course; and every now and
then