o glint of sunlight touched it. As he
rode by he heard the sound of children's voices, and, raising himself
in his stirrups, looked over the clipped yew hedge that guarded the
lower garden from the roadway. A dozen or fifteen small blue-cloaks
were romping joyously under one of the verandas, and perhaps twenty of
the bigger blue-cloaks were soberly parading two by two in a cloister.

Nothing carried him back so promptly and surely as the sight of these
blue-cloaked girls, and scarcely a day ever passed without his seeing
them. Two by two they were incessantly tramping the roads for miles
round. He could not walk, ride, or drive without meeting them. When he
heard their footsteps and knew that they were coming marching by
Vine-Pits, he turned his back to the office window, or went into the
depths of granary or stable. He had hated that day when Mavis brought
them off the road and into the heart of his home.

With the sound of their shrill cries and merry laughter lingering in
his ears he rode on.

What a hideous and damnable mockery! This was the monument of that
good kind man, the late Mr. Barradine. Every red tile, every dab of
white paint, every square inch of clean gravel, gave substance and
solidity to the lasting fame of that dear sweet gentleman. Visitors
to the neighborhood always stopped their carriages or motor cars
outside the Orphanage gates, questioned and gaped, sent in their
cards, begged for permission to go all over it. Inside, no doubt they
admired the rows of clean white beds, some of them quite little cots,
others big enough for almost full-grown bouncing lasses; they stood
with hushed breath before his portrait in the refectory hall or his
bust on the stairs; and perhaps they patted the cheeks of some pretty
inmate and asked if, when saying her prayers, she always included the
name of the patron saint. On high occasions clergymen and bishops
came, there to hiccough and weep over his blessed memory. Great lords
and ladies praised him, newspaper writers praised him, ignorant fools
in cottages praised him; and to high and low the crowning grace of his
glorious charity was the selection of the softer, gentler, and too
often downtrodden sex as the object of such tender care. That was what
set the sentimental rivers flowing. It proved the innate gentleness
and sweetness of him who was now an angel in Heaven. When it came to
choosing the guests for the lovely home he had built in his mind, he
had said: "