this great old poetry he owes to George
Muncaster. In the very silence of his home one hears a singing--'There
lies the happiest land.' It was one of his own quaint touches that the
first night we found his nest, after the maid had given us admission,
there should be no one to welcome us into the bright little parlour but
a wee boy of four, standing in the doorway like a robin that has hopped
on to one's window-sill. But with what a dear grace did the little chap
hold out his hand and bid us good evening, and turn his little morsel of
a bird's tongue round our names; to be backed at once by a ring of
laughter from the hidden 'prompter' thereupon revealed. O happy, happy
home! may God for ever smile upon you! There should be a special grace
for happy homes. George's set us 'collecting' such, with results
undreamed of by youthful cynic. Take courage, Reader, if haply you stand
with hesitating toe above the fatal plunge. Fear not, you can swim if
you will. Of course, you must take care that your joint poetry-maker be
such a one as George's. One must not seem to forget the loving wife who
made such dreaming as his possible. He did not; and, indeed, had you
told him of his happiness, he would but have turned to her with a smile
that said, 'All of thee, my love'; while, did one ask of this and that,
how quickly 'Yes! that was George's idea,' laughed along her lips.

While we sat talking that first evening, there suddenly came three
cries, as of three little heads straining out of a nest, for 'Father';
and obedient, with a laugh, he left us. This, we soon learnt, was a part
of the sweet evening ritual of home. After mother's more practical
service had been rendered the little ones, and they were cosily 'tucked
in,' then came 'father's turn,' which consisted of his sitting by their
bedside--Owen and Geoffrey on one hand, and little queen Phyllis,
maidenlike in solitary cot, on the other--and crooning to them a little
evening song. In the dark, too, I should say, for it was one of his wise
provisions that they should be saved from ever fearing that; and that,
whenever they awoke to find it round them in the middle of the night, it
should bring them no other association but 'father's voice.'

A quaint recitative of his own, which he generally contrived to vary
each night, was the song, a loving croon of sleep and rest. The
brotherhood of rest, one might name his theme for grown-up folk; as in
the morning, we afterwards learnt, he