were things in his cousin's letters that
had made his heart sore. "Your poor father was always looking for your
letters," she wrote, "they used to cheer him so much. He nearly broke
down when you sent him that money last Christmas; he got it into his head
that you were starving yourself to send it him. He was hoping so much
that you would have come down this Christmas, and kept asking me about
the plum-puddings months ago."

It was not only his father that had died, but with him the last strong
link was broken, and the past life, the days of his boyhood, grew faint
as a dream. With his father his mother died again, and the long years
died, the time of his innocence, the memory of affection. He was sorry
that his letters had gone home so rarely; it hurt him to imagine his
father looking out when the post came in the morning, and forced to be
sad because there was nothing. But he had never thought that his father
valued the few lines that he wrote, and indeed it was often difficult to
know what to say. It would have been useless to write of those agonizing
nights when the pen seemed an awkward and outlandish instrument, when
every effort ended in shameful defeat, or of the happier hours when at
last wonder appeared and the line glowed, crowned and exalted. To poor
Mr. Taylor such tales would have seemed but trivial histories of some
Oriental game, like an odd story from a land where men have time for the
infinitely little, and can seriously make a science of arranging blossoms
in a jar, and discuss perfumes instead of politics. It would have been
useless to write to the rectory of his only interest, and so he wrote
seldom.

And then he had been sorry because he could never write again and never
see his home. He had wondered whether he would have gone down to the old
place at Christmas, if his father had lived. It was curious how common
things evoked the bitterest griefs, but his father's anxiety that the
plum-pudding should be good, and ready for him, had brought the tears
into his eyes. He could hear him saying in a nervous voice that attempted
to be cheerful: "I suppose you will be thinking of the Christmas puddings
soon, Jane; you remember how fond Lucian used to be of plum-pudding. I
hope we shall see him this December." No doubt poor Miss Deacon paled
with rage at the suggestion that she should make Christmas pudding in
July; and returned a sharp answer; but it was pathetic. The wind wailed,
and the rain dashed and