to tuck them up, admiring the innocence of each unconscious
muzzle on its pillow. Sometimes, in a crisis of his problems, he thought
of writing to Dr. Holt for advice; but the will-power was lacking.

It is really astonishing how children can exhaust one, he used to think.
Sometimes, after a long day, he was even too weary to correct their
grammar. "You lay down!" Groups would admonish Yelpers, who was capering
in his crib while Bunks was being lashed in with the largest size of
safety pins. And Gissing, doggedly passing from one to another, was
really too fatigued to reprove the verb, picked up from Mrs. Spaniel.

Fairy tales proving a disappointment, he had great hopes of encouraging
them in drawing. He bought innumerable coloured crayons and stacks
of scribbling paper. After supper they would all sit down around the
dining-room table and he drew pictures for them. Tongues depending with
concentrated excitement, the children would try to copy these pictures
and colour them. In spite of having three complete sets of crayons, a
full roster of colours could rarely be found at drawing time. Bunks had
the violet when Groups wanted it, and so on. But still, this was often
the happiest hour of the day. Gissing drew amazing trains, elephants,
ships, and rainbows, with the spectrum of colours correctly arranged
and blended. The children specially loved his landscapes, which were
opulently tinted and magnificent in long perspectives. He found himself
always colouring the far horizons a pale and haunting blue.

He was meditating these things when a shrill yammer recalled him to the
house.

CHAPTER FOUR

In this warm summer weather Gissing slept on a little outdoor balcony
that opened off the nursery. The world, rolling in her majestic seaway,
heeled her gunwale slowly into the trough of space. Disked upon this
bulwark, the sun rose, and promptly Gissing woke. The poplars flittered
in a cool stir. Beyond the tadpole pond, through a notch in the
landscape, he could see the far darkness of the hills. That fringe of
woods was a railing that kept the sky from flooding over the earth.

The level sun, warily peering over the edge like a cautious marksman,
fired golden volleys unerringly at him. At once Gissing was aware and
watchful. Brief truce was over: the hopeless war with Time began anew.

This was his placid hour. Light, so early, lies timidly along the
ground. It steals gently from ridge to ridge; it is soft, unsure.