and bread
which were kept in a cupboard awaiting her visits. She smoothed velvet
noses and patted satin sides, talking to Mason a little before she went
her way.

Then she strolled into the park. The park was always a pleasure. She was
in a thoughtful mood, and the soft green shadowed silence lured her. The
summer wind hus-s-shed the branches as it lightly waved them, the brown
earth of the avenue was sun-dappled, there were bird notes and calls
to be heard here and there and everywhere, if one only arrested one's
attention a moment to listen. And she was in a listening and dreaming
mood--one of the moods in which bird, leaf, and wind, sun, shade, and
scent of growing things have part.

And yet her thoughts were of mundane things.

It was on this avenue that G. Selden had met with his accident. He was
still at Dunstan vicarage, and yesterday Mount Dunstan, in calling, had
told them that Mr. Penzance was applying himself with delighted interest
to a study of the manipulation of the Delkoff.

The thought of Mount Dunstan brought with it the thought of her father.
This was because there was frequently in her mind a connection between
the two. How would the man of schemes, of wealth, and power almost
unbounded, regard the man born with a load about his neck--chained
to earth by it, standing in the midst of his hungering and thirsting
possessions, his hands empty of what would feed them and restore their
strength? Would he see any solution of the problem? She could
imagine his looking at the situation through his gaze at the man, and
considering both in his summing up.

"Circumstances and the man," she had heard him say. "But always the man
first."

Being no visionary, he did not underestimate the power of circumstance.
This Betty had learned from him. And what could practically be done with
circumstance such as this? The question had begun to recur to her. What
could she herself have done in the care of Rosy and Stornham, if
chance had not placed in her hand the strongest lever? What she had
accomplished had been easy--easy. All that had been required had been
the qualities which control of the lever might itself tend to create in
one. Given--by mere chance again--imagination and initiative, the moving
of the lever did the rest. If chance had not been on one's side, what
then? And where was this man's chance? She had said to Rosy, in speaking
of the wealth of America, "Sometimes one is tired of it." And Rosy had
rem