us career of the third Earl of Teignmouth. He
had pondered upon the deep delights of directing such a mind and
character, and had caught himself envying the dust that was older still.
When he read of the lad's early death, in spite of his regret that such
promise should have come to naught, he admitted to a secret thrill of
satisfaction that the boy had so soon ceased to belong to any one. Then
he smiled with both sadness and humor.

"What an old fool I am!" he admitted. "I believe I not only wish those
children were alive, but that they were my own."

The frank admission proved fatal. He made straight for the gallery. The
boy, after the interval of separation, seemed more spiritedly alive than
ever, the little girl to suggest, with her faint appealing smile, that
she would like to be taken up and cuddled.

"I must try another way," he thought, desperately, after that long
communion. "I must write them out of me."

He went back to the library and locked up the _tour de force_ which had
ceased to command his classic faculty. At once, he began to write the
story of the brief lives of the children, much to the amazement of that
faculty, which was little accustomed to the simplicities. Nevertheless,
before he had written three chapters, he knew that he was at work upon a
masterpiece--and more: he was experiencing a pleasure so keen that once
and again his hand trembled, and he saw the page through a mist.
Although his characters had always been objective to himself and his
more patient readers, none knew better than he--a man of no
delusions--that they were so remote and exclusive as barely to escape
being mere mentalities; they were never the pulsing living creations of
the more full-blooded genius. But he had been content to have it so. His
creations might find and leave him cold, but he had known his highest
satisfaction in chiselling the statuettes, extracting subtle and
elevating harmonies, while combining words as no man of his tongue had
combined them before.

But the children were not statuettes. He had loved and brooded over them
long ere he had thought to tuck them into his pen, and on its first
stroke they danced out alive. The old mansion echoed with their
laughter, with their delightful and original pranks. Mr. Orth knew
nothing of children, therefore all the pranks he invented were as
original as his faculty. The little girl clung to his hand or knee as
they both followed the adventurous course of their c