t of sentiment for the end.

Lady Disdain came back to the gate, by and by, to see why he had not
followed her. She screamed and then hid in the recesses of the garden.
He had been dead for some time when they found him. They left the gate
creaking in the evening wind. After a long time a terrified woman
stole out by it.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE PERFECT LOVER

Tommy has not lasted. More than once since it became known that I was
writing his life I have been asked whether there ever really was such
a person, and I am afraid to inquire for his books at the library lest
they are no longer there. A recent project to bring out a new edition,
with introductions by some other Tommy, received so little support
that it fell to the ground. It must be admitted that, so far as the
great public is concerned, Thomas Sandys is done for.

They have even forgotten the manner of his death, though probably no
young writer with an eye on posterity ever had a better send-off. We
really thought at the time that Tommy had found a way.

The surmise at Rintoul, immediately accepted by the world as a fact,
was that he had been climbing the wall to obtain for Grizel the
flowers accidentally left in the garden, and it at once tipped the
tragedy with gold. The newspapers, which were in the middle of the
dull season, thanked their gods for Tommy, and enthusiastically set to
work on him. Great minds wrote criticisms of what they called his
life-work. The many persons who had been the first to discover him
said so again. His friends were in demand for the most trivial
reminiscences. Unhappy Pym cleared Lll 10s.

Shall we quote? It is nearly always done at this stage of the
biography, so now for the testimonials to prove that our hero was
without a flaw. A few specimens will suffice if we select some that
are very like many of the others. It keeps Grizel waiting, but Tommy,
as you have seen, was always the great one; she existed only that he
might show how great he was. "Busy among us of late," says one, "has
been the grim visitor who knocks with equal confidence at the doors of
the gifted and the ungifted, the pauper and the prince, and twice in
one short month has he taken from us men of an eminence greater
perhaps than that of Mr. Sandys; but of them it could be said their
work was finished, while his sun sinks tragically when it is yet day.
Not by what his riper years might have achieved can this pure, spirit
now be judged, and to us, we