aily visit, for she alone was permitted to approach him, Mrs.
Brent had found him lying with his face on his outflung arm, "just like
a little boy in his bed."

"And were you frightened?" Miriam asked.

"There was nothing to be afraid of, my dear," Mrs. Brent replied. "Death
comes to all of us. It's a good thing to get used to the look of him."

Mrs. Brent had been fond of Mr. Pinderwell. He was a gentleman, she
said, and though his mind had become more and more bewildered towards
the end, he had been unfailingly courteous to her. She would find him
wandering up and down the stairs, carrying a small basket of tools in
his hand, for he took to wood-carving at the last, as the panels of the
bedroom doors were witness, and he would stop to speak about the weather
and beg her to allow him to make her some return for all her kindness.

"I used to clean up the place for him," Mrs. Brent would always
continue, "and do a little cooking for him, poor old chap! I missed him
when he'd gone, and I was glad when your mother came and took the house,
just as it stood, with his lady's picture and all, and made the place
comfortable again."

Miriam would press against Mrs. Brent's wide knees. "Will you tell us
the story again, please, Mrs. Brent?"

"If you're good children, but not today. Run along home."

At that stage of their development they were hardly interested in the
portrait of Mr. Pinderwell's bride, hanging above the sofa in the
drawing-room. It was the only picture in the house, and from an oval
frame of gilt a pretty lady, crowned with a plait of hair, looked mildly
on these usurpers of her home. She was not real to them, though for
Helen she was to become so, but Mr. Pinderwell, pacing up and down the
stairs, carrying a little chisel, was a living friend. On the wide,
wind-swept landing, they studied his handiwork on the doors, and they
made a discovery which Mrs. Brent had missed. These roughnesses, known
to their fingers from their first day in the house, were letters, and
made names. Laboriously they spelt them out. Jane, on the door of
Helen's room, was easy; Phoebe, on Miriam's, was for a long time
called Pehebe; and Christopher, on another, had a familiar and
adventurous sound.

"Funny," Rupert said. "What are they?"

Helen spoke with that decision which often annoyed her relatives. "I
know. It's the names of the children he was going to have. Jane and
Pehebe and Christopher. That's what it is. And these we