d to
weary you with details--the least a man can do is not to make a fuss--and
yet he must be found ready.--Sir, with profound gratitude, your servant,
"ROGER BRUNE."

Everything was as he had said. The photograph on the stove was that of a
young girl of nineteen or twenty, dressed in an old-fashioned style, with
hair gathered backward in a knot. The eyes gazed at you with a little
frown, the lips were tightly closed; the expression of the face was
eager, quick, wilful, and, above all, young.

The tin trunk was scented with dry fragments of some herb, the history of
which in that trunk man knoweth not.... There were a few clothes, but
very few, all older than those he usually wore. Besides the Byron and
Pilgrim's Progress were Scott's Quentin Durward, Captain Marryat's
Midshipman Easy, a pocket Testament, and a long and frightfully stiff
book on the art of fortifying towns, much thumbed, and bearing date 1863.
By far the most interesting thing I found, however, was a diary, kept
down to the preceding Christmas. It was a pathetic document, full of
calculations of the price of meals; resolutions to be careful over this
or that; doubts whether he must not give up smoking; sentences of fear
that Freda had not enough to eat. It appeared that he had tried to live
on ninety pounds a year, and send the other hundred pounds home to Lucy
for the child; in this struggle he was always failing, having to send
less than the amount-the entries showed that this was a nightmare to him.
The last words, written on Christmas Day, were these "What is the use of
writing this, since it records nothing but failure!"

The landlady's daughter and myself were at the funeral. The same
afternoon I went into the concert-room, where I had spoken to him first.
When I came out Freda was lying at the entrance, looking into the faces
of every one that passed, and sniffing idly at their heels. Close by the
landlady's daughter hovered, a biscuit in her hand, and a puzzled, sorry
look on her face.

September 1900.

TO

MY BROTHER HUBERT GALSWORTHY

SALVATION OF A FORSYTE

I

Swithin Forsyte lay in bed. The corners of his mouth under his white
moustache drooped towards his double chin. He panted:

"My doctor says I'm in a bad way, James."

His twin-brother placed his hand behind his ear. "I can't hear you. They
tell me I ought to take a cure. There's always a cure wanted for
something. Emily had a cure."

Swithi