ou can't say there's no such thing as growth. If it's only a garden,
it's natural to like to see life unfolding--that's the future.'

'Yes, in spite of resolutions, you'll be trying the great experiment.'
He said it wearily.

'Why should you mind so?' she asked curiously; 'you are not in love with
me.'

'How do you know?'

'Because you give me such a sense of rest.'

'Thank you.' He caught himself up. 'Or perhaps I should thank my grey
hair.'

'Grey hair doesn't bring the thing I mean. I've sometimes wished it did.
But our friendship is an uncommonly peaceful one, don't you think?'

'Yes; I think it is,' he said. 'All the same, you know there's a touch
of magic in it.' But, as though to condone the confession, 'You haven't
told me why you were ruffled.'

'It's nothing. I dare say I was a little tired.'

They had come out into the park. 'I hurried so to catch the train. My
sister's new coachman is stupid about finding short cuts in London, and
we got blocked by a procession--a horrible sort of demonstration, you
know.'

'Oh, the unemployed.'

'Yes. And I got so tired of leaning out of the window and shouting
directions that I left the maid and the luggage to come later. I got out
of the brougham and ran through a slum, or I'd have lost my train. I
nearly lost it anyway, because I saw a queer picture that made me stop.'
She stopped again at the mere memory of it.

'In a second-hand shop?'

He turned his pointed face to her, and the grey-green eyes wore a gleam
of interest that few things could arouse in their cool depths.

'No, not in a shop.' She stopped and leaned against a tree. 'In the
street. It was a middle-aged workman. When I caught sight of his back
and saw his worn clothes--the coat went up in the middle, and had that
despairing sag on both sides--it crossed my mind, here's another of
those miserable, unemployed wastrels obstructing my way! Then he looked
round and I saw--solid content in his face!' She stopped a moment.

'So he _wasn't_ one of the----'

'Well, I wondered. I couldn't see at first what it was he had looked
round at. Then I noticed he had a rope in his hand, and was dragging
something. As the people who had been between us hurried on I saw--I saw
a child, two or three years old, in a flapping, pink sun-bonnet. He was
sitting astride a toy horse. The horse was clumsily made, and had lost
its tail. But it had its head still, and the board it was mounted on had
fat, wooden roller