what good is it to me? Only a reminder--of what might have been. But
I've got a boy, Hodder,--I don't know whether I've ever spoken of him to
you--Preston. He's gone away, too. But I've always had the hope that he
might come back and get decently married, and live, here. That's why I
stay. I'll show you his picture."

They climbed to the third floor, and while Mr. Parr way searching for
the electric switch, a lightning flash broke over the forests of the
park, prematurely revealing the room. It was a boy's room, hung
with photographs of school and college crews and teams and groups
of intimates, with deep window seats, and draped pennons of Harvard
University over the fireplace. Eldon Parr turned to one of the groups on
the will, the earliest taken at school.

"There he is," he said, pointing out a sunny little face at the bottom,
a boy of twelve, bareheaded, with short, crisping yellow hair, smiling
lips and laughing eyes. "And here he is again," indicating another
group. Thus he traced him through succeeding years until they came to
those of college.

"There he is," said the rector. "I think I can pick him out now."

"Yes; that's Preston," said his father, staring hard at the picture. The
face had developed, the body had grown almost to man's estate, but the
hint of crispness was still in the hair, the mischievous laughter in
the eyes. The rector gazed earnestly at the face, remembering his own
boyhood, his own youth, his mind dwelling, too, on what he had heard of
the original of the portrait. What had happened to the boy, to bring to
naught the fair promise of this earlier presentment?

He was aroused by the voice of Eldon Parr, who had sunk into one of the
leather chairs.

"I can see him now," he was saying, "as he used to come running down
that long flight of stone steps in Ransome Street to meet me when I came
home. Such laughter! And once, in his eagerness, he fell and cut his
forehead. I shall never forget how I felt. And when I picked him up he
tried to laugh still, with the tears rolling down his face. You know the
way a child's breath catches, Hodder? He was always laughing. And how
he used to cling to me, and beg me to take him out, and show such an
interest in everything! He was a bright boy, a remarkable child, I
thought, but I suppose it was my foolishness. He analyzed all he saw,
and when he used to go off in my car, Brennan, the engineer, would
always beg to have him in the cab. And such sympathy