gland he did not
consider. He only knew that until he had satisfied the chief desire of
his heart and had looked upon the original of the picture he had borne
so long in his mind he could not rest nor make any plans for the future.

He came first to London and found, on examining the map of Hampshire,
that the village of Thorpe (I will call it), where he was born, is three
miles from the nearest station, in the southern part of the county.
Undoubtedly it was Thorpe; that was one of the few names of places his
father had mentioned which remained in his memory always associated
with that vivid image of the farm in his mind. To Thorpe he accordingly
went--as pretty a rustic village as he had hoped to find it. He took a
room at the inn and went out for a long walk--"just to see the place,"
he said to the landlord. He would make no inquiries; he would find his
home for himself; how could he fail to recognize it? But he walked for
hours in a widening circle and saw no farm or other house, and no ground
that corresponded to the picture in his brain.

Troubled at his failure, he went back and questioned his landlord, and,
naturally, was asked for the name of the farm he was seeking. He had
forgotten the name--he even doubted that he had ever heard it. But there
was his family name to go by--Dyson; did any one remember a farmer Dyson
in the village? He was told that it was not an uncommon name in that
part of the country. There were no Dysons now in Thorpe, but some
fifteen or twenty years ago one of that name had been the tenant of Long
Meadow Farm in the parish. The name of the farm was unfamiliar, and when
he visited the place he found it was not the one he sought.

It was a grievous disappointment. A new sense of loneliness oppressed
him; for that bright image in his mind, with the feeling about his
home, had been a secret source of comfort and happiness, and was like a
companion, a dear human friend, and now he appeared to be on the point
of losing it. Could it be that all that mental picture, with the details
that seemed so true to life, was purely imaginary? He could not believe
it; the old house had probably been pulled down, the big trees felled,
orchard and hedges grabbed up--all the old features obliterated--and the
land thrown into some larger neighbouring farm. It was dreadful to
think that such devastating changes had been made, but it had certainly
existed as he saw it in his mind, and he would inquire of some of