fe was that their
pleasures were so cheap. What with Harry's genial gayety and Ernest's
spiritual humor, and the gayety and humor of the friends that loved
them, they did not have to pay for their hilarity on the stage. There
were quiet evenings and noisy ones, and Violet liked them both. She
liked to study languages with Ernest; she liked the books from the
City Library that they read aloud,--romances that were taken for
Mrs. Schroder's pleasure, Ruskins which Ernest enjoyed, and Harry's
favorites, which, to tell the truth, were few. He begged to be made the
reader,--otherwise, he confessed, he was in danger of falling asleep.

Violet had grown up into a woman, and the boys had become men; and now
she was kneeling in front of Mrs. Schroder's fire.

"Ernest's last day at home," she said, dreamily. "Oh, now I begin to
pity Harry!"

"To pity Harry?" said Mrs. Schroder. "Yes, indeed! But it is Ernest that
I think of most. He is going away among strangers. He depends upon Harry
far more than Harry depends upon him."

"It is just that," said Violet. "Harry has always been the one to give.
But it will be changed now, when Ernest comes home. You see, he will be
great then. He has been dependent upon us, all along, because genius
must move so slowly at first; but when he comes back, he will be above
us, and, oh! how shall we know where to find him?"

"You do not mean that my boy will look down upon his mother?" said Mrs.
Schroder, raising herself in her chair.

"Look down upon us?" cried Violet. "Oh, no! it is only the little that
do that, that they may appear to be high. The truly great never look
down. They are kneeling already, and they look up. If they only would
look down upon us! But it is the old story: the body can do for a while
without the spirit, can make its way in the world for a little, and
meantime the spirit is dependent upon the body. Of course it could not
live without the body,--what we call life. But by-and-by spirit must
assert itself, and find its wings. And where, oh, where, will it rise
to? Above us,--above us all!"

"How strangely you talk!" said Mrs. Schroder, looking into Violet's
face. "What has this to do with poor Ernest?"

"I was thinking of poor Harry," said Violet. "All this time he has been
working for Ernest. Harry has earned the money with which Ernest goes
abroad,--which he has lived upon all these years,--not only his daily
bread, but what his talent, his genius, whatever it is, ha