but to a great extent works of
very modern issue, arguing in their possessor the catholicity of taste
which our time encourages. The solid books which form the substratum of
every collection were brought together by Mr. Brook Ormonde, in the
first instance at his house in Devonshire Square; when failing health
compelled him to leave London, the town establishment was broken up,
and until his death, three years later, the family resided wholly at
The Chestnuts. During those years the library grew appreciably, for the
son of the house, Horace Ormonde, had just come forth from the academic
curriculum with a vast appetite for literature. His mother, moreover,
was of the women who read. Whilst Mr. Ormonde was taking a lingering
farewell of the world and its concerns, these two active minds were
busy with the fire-new thought of the scientific and humanitarian age.
Walter Egremont was then a frequent visitor of the house; he and Horace
talked many a summer night into dawn over the problems which nowadays
succeed measles and scarlatina as a form of youthful complaint. But
Horace Ormonde had even a shorter span of life before him than his
invalid father. He was drowned in bathing, and it was Egremont who had
to take the news up to The Chestnuts. A few months later, there was
another funeral from the house. Mrs. Ormonde remained alone.

It was in this room that Egremont had waited for the mother's coming,
that morning when he returned companionless from the beach. He was then
but two-and-twenty; big task was as terrible as a man can be called
upon to perform. Mrs. Ormonde had the strength to remember that; she
shed no tears, uttered no lamentations. When, after a few questions,
she was going silently from the room, Walter, his own eyes blinded,
caught her hand and pressed it passionately in both his own. She was
the woman whom he reverenced above all others, worshipping her with
that pure devotion which young men such as he are wont to feel for some
gracious lady much their elder. At that moment he would have given his
own life to the sea could he by so doing have brought her back the son
who would never return. Such moments do not come often to the best of
us, perhaps in very truth do not repeat themselves. Egremont never
entered the library without having that impulse of uttermost
unselfishness brought back vividly to his thoughts; on that account he
liked the room, and gladly spent a quiet half-hour in it.

In a little less