death came, like a friend, to give rest to those
who had laboured so diligently.

"My father wished me to become a carpenter like himself.
For five generations we've carried on the same trade, from father
to son. Perhaps that is the wisdom of life, to tread in your
father's steps, and look neither to the right nor to the left.
When I was a little boy I said I would marry the daughter of
the harness-maker who lived next door. She was a little girl
with blue eyes and a flaxen pigtail. She would have kept my
house like a new pin, and I should have had a son to carry on
the business after me."

Stroeve sighed a little and was silent. His thoughts dwelt
among pictures of what might have been, and the safety of the
life he had refused filled him with longing.

"The world is hard and cruel. We are here none knows why,
and we go none knows whither. We must be very humble. We must
see the beauty of quietness. We must go through life so
inconspicuously that Fate does not notice us. And let us seek
the love of simple, ignorant people. Their ignorance is
better than all our knowledge. Let us be silent, content in
our little corner, meek and gentle like them. That is the
wisdom of life."

To me it was his broken spirit that expressed itself, and I
rebelled against his renunciation. But I kept my own counsel.

"What made you think of being a painter?" I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"It happened that I had a knack for drawing. I got prizes for
it at school. My poor mother was very proud of my gift,
and she gave me a box of water-colours as a present. She showed
my sketches to the pastor and the doctor and the judge.
And they sent me to Amsterdam to try for a scholarship, and I won
it. Poor soul, she was so proud; and though it nearly broke
her heart to part from me, she smiled, and would not show me
her grief. She was pleased that her son should be an artist.
They pinched and saved so that I should have enough to live on,
and when my first picture was exhibited they came to
Amsterdam to see it, my father and mother and my sister,
and my mother cried when she looked at it." His kind eyes glistened.
"And now on every wall of the old house there is one of my
pictures in a beautiful gold frame."

He glowed with happy pride. I thought of those cold scenes of
his, with their picturesque peasants and cypresses and olive-trees.
They must look queer in their garish frames on the walls of
the peasant ho