a chimney at the rear sending up the friendly
line of its earliest smoke, begot in him a vague emotion that all the
bricks and mortar in the city were incapable of doing. He told himself
that he, too, wanted a home;--not the boarding-house life that had been
his before fame swooped down on him, nor the more luxurious club life
that had followed, nor a holiday-month like this present one, in a
rented cottage with his favourite sister for companion; but a home--like
"Greenways"--with a slender woman in white, like the one there moving
about the paths. There was no question in his mind but that she must be
slender, for he himself and his sister were both stout. How Miss Bibby's
heart would have leapt could she have known whose eyes were watching her
as she walked perseveringly up and down, practising the early
deep-breathing exercises that she maintained were so essential to
health!

And it must be a home with signs of children's occupancy about--he was
quite sure of that. Max and Muffie would have been amazed to know that
the little red tricycle on the verandah, and the doll's perambulator
overturned on a path, were assisting a celebrated man to this vague
emotion.

"Ridiculous!" he said. "I'm hungry; that's what it is; this mountain air
is doing me good already."

He crossed the road and went back to "Tenby," where his sister's bedroom
was yet darkened, and the very servant still slept serenely. He was
good-hearted, and could not bring himself to hammer on the doors; but as
he went to the pantry to find something for himself, he concluded that
they had fortified themselves against the fly by drawing the sheets over
their heads.

The pantry and kitchen left him rueful. Boxes of every size stood about
in what seemed to him the same wild confusion that they had worn last
night when they had been tossed out of the carrier's cart. He foraged
everywhere and could find no bread; in none of the tins or jars in which
he peered lurked there any butter. Yet he realized that he had no one to
blame but himself for this confusion. Matters had been beautifully
arranged. His married sister, Mrs. Gowan, had taken "Tenby" for him, and
seen to it that it was spotlessly clean; his unmarried sister, Kate,
with an efficient servant, was to come up a week ahead of himself to get
everything in perfect order and comfort for him, since he was supposed
to be overworked and in need of a change.

And then, what must he do but upset everything!