r that night, and when during the
month Sanders himself went to take a job further up in the State and the
entire Sanders family moved to Buffalo, Fairfax's slumbers grew sounder
still. At length his own restless spirit broke his repose.

April burst over the country in a mad display of blossoms, which
Fairfax, through the cab of his engine, saw lying like snow across the
hills. He passed through blossoming orchards, and above the smell of oil
and grease came the ineffable sweetness of spring, the perfume of the
earth and the trees. Just a year ago he had gone with Bella and Gardiner
to Central Park, and he remembered Gardiner's little arm outstretched
for the prize ring he could never secure, and Bella's sparkling success.
The children had been in spring attire; now Fairfax could buy himself a
new overcoat and did so, a grey one, well-made and well-fitting, a straw
hat with a crimson band, and a stick to carry on his Sunday
jauntings--but he walked alone.

He flung his books in the bottom drawer of his bureau, locked it and
pitched the key out of the window. He would not let them tempt him, for
he had weakly bought certain volumes that he had always wanted to read,
and Nut Street did not understand them.

"It's the books," he decided; "I can't be an engineer if I go on, nor
will I be able to bear my lonely state."

Verse and lovely prose did not help him; their rhythm and swell drew
away the curtains from the window of his heart, and the golden light of
spring dazzled the young man's eyes. He eagerly observed the womenkind
he passed, and Easter week, with its solemn festival, ran in hymn and
prayer toward Easter Day. New frocks, new jackets, new hats were bright
in the street. On Easter Sunday Fairfax sat in his old place by the
choir and sang. The passion and tenderness brooding in him made his
voice rich and the choir-master heard him above the congregation. From
the lighted altar and the lilies, from the sunlight streaming through
the stained windows, inspiration came to him, and as Fairfax sat and
listened to the service he saw in imagination a great fountain to the
left of the altar, a fountain of his building that should stand there, a
marble fountain held by young angels with folded wings, and he would
model, as Della Robbia modelled, angels in their primitive beauty, their
bright infancy. The young man's head sank forward, he breathed a deep
sigh. He owed every penny that he had laid by to Mrs. Kenny, to the