tesman, when it
may be but a few days after the loss of some one nearest and dearest to
his heart, the trader reopens his shop, the statesman reappears in his
office? But in me, the votary of art, in me you behold but the weakness
of gratified vanity; if I feel joy in the hope that my art may triumph,
and my country may add my name to the list of those who contribute to
her renown, where and when ever lived an artist not sustained by that
hope, in privation, in sickness, in the sorrows he must share with his
kind? Nor is this hope that of a feminine vanity, a sicklier craving for
applause; it identifies itself with glorious services to our land, to
our race, to the children of all after time. Our art cannot triumph, our
name cannot live, unless we achieve a something that tends to beautify
or ennoble the world in which we accept the common heritage of toil and
of sorrow, in order therefrom to work out for successive multitudes a
recreation and a joy."

While the artist thus spoke Kenelm lifted towards his face eyes charged
with suppressed tears. And the face, kindling as the artist vindicated
himself from the young man's bitter charge, became touchingly sweet in
its grave expression at the close of the not ignoble defence.

"Enough," said Kenelm, rising. "There is a ring of truth in what you
say. I can conceive the artist's, the poet's escape from this world,
when all therein is death and winter, into the world he creates and
colours at his will with the hues of summer. So, too, I can conceive
how the man whose life is sternly fitted into the grooves of a trader's
calling, or a statesman's duties, is borne on by the force of custom,
afar from such brief halting-spot as a grave. But I am no poet, no
artist, no trader, no statesman; I have no calling, my life is fixed
into no grooves. Adieu."

"Hold a moment. Not now, but somewhat later, ask yourself whether any
life can be permitted to wander in space, a monad detached from the
lives of others. Into some groove or other, sooner or later, it
must settle, and be borne on obedient to the laws of Nature and the
responsibility to God."

CHAPTER XIII

KENELM went back alone, and with downcast looks, through the desolate,
flowerless garden, when at the other side of the gate a light touch was
laid on his arm. He looked up, and recognized Mrs. Cameron.

"I saw you," she said, "from my window coming to the house, and I have
been waiting for you here. I wished to speak