fellow
get so much comfort out of everything as you do, and yet your life is a
steady grind. What does it all mean?"

"It means," said John softly, "that I am a Christ's man, and he has
lifted me above the power of circumstances. Jesus is centre and
circumference with me now, Rege.

"You were talking yesterday about some men wanting the earth. I _own_
the earth, because it belongs to my Father,--the best part of it, you
know,--there is a truer giving than by title deeds to material
acres--and the world has grown very beautiful since my Father made me
heir of all things through his Son. The birds' songs have a new note in
them, and the sunlight is brighter, and there is a different blue in
the sky. I'm monarch of all I survey because I get the good out of
everything,--mere earthly possession doesn't amount to much, a man has
to leave the finest estates behind him,--but I get the concentrated
sweetness of it all wherever I am. It is God's world, you know, and he
is my Father."

John was called away just then to attend to some gentlemen who had come
to look at the horses, and Reginald waited for his return in vain. He
heard his father's voice once, raised high in stormy wrath, then all was
still again. Some time afterwards, through the leafy curtain of his
veranda, he saw Mr. Hawthorne drive past with a face so distorted with
passion that he shivered.

"There's been no end of a row this time," he soliloquized. "It is a
mystery to me why John puts up with it. He's free to go when he chooses.
I'm sure I'd clear out if I wasn't such a good-for-nothing. The governor
is getting to be more like a bear than a human being, it's a dog's life
for everybody unlucky enough to be under the same roof with him."

* * * * *

Down at the bend of the river a tall figure lay stretched upon the moss.
The river laughed and the birds sang, but John Randolph's face was
buried in his arms.

To leave Hollywood--that very night! The place whose very stones were
dear to him, where he had learned all he knew of home. To be turned off
like a beggar, without a moment's warning, after all his years of toil!
To say good-bye forever to the human friends who loved him, and the
dear, dumb friends whom he had fondled and tended with such constant
care. Never again to swing along through the sweet freshness of the
morning before the sun was up to find the earliest snowdrops for Mrs.
Hawthorne, or take a spin in the moon