Solid Gold Reef Company, is in
liquidation because, though there is really the gold there, it
costs too much to get it. I have no relatives anywhere to help
me. Unless I can get assistance my children and I must go at
once--tomorrow--into the workhouse. Yes, we are paupers. I
am ruined by the cruel lies of that prospectus, and the
wickedness which deluded me, and I know not how many others,
out of my money. I have been foolish, and am punished; but
those people, who will punish them? Help me, if you can, my
dear Reginald. Oh! for _GOD'S_ sake, help my children and me.
Help your mother's friend, your own old friend.

'This,' said Rosie meditatively, 'is exactly the kind of thing to make
Reggie uncomfortable. Why, it might make him unhappy all day. Better
burn it.' She dropped the letter into the fire. 'He's an impulsive,
emotional nature, and he doesn't understand the City. If people are so
foolish--What a lot of fibs the poor old pater does tell, to be sure!
He's a regular novelist--Oh! here you are, you lazy boy!'

'Kiss me, Rosie.' He looked as handsome as Apollo, and as cheerful.
'I wish all the world were as happy as you and me. Heigho! some poor
devils, I'm afraid--'

'Tea or coffee, Reg?'

_Henry James_

THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE

(_The Soft Side_, London: Methuen and Co., 1900)

I

It was one of the secret opinions, such as we all have, of Peter
Brench that his main success in life would have consisted in his never
having committed himself about the work, as it was called, of his
friend Morgan Mallow. This was a subject on which it was, to the
best of his belief, impossible with veracity to quote him, and it was
nowhere on record that he had, in the connexion, on any occasion and
in any embarrassment, either lied or spoken the truth. Such a triumph
had its honour even for a man of other triumphs--a man who had reached
fifty, who had escaped marriage, who had lived within his means, who
had been in love with Mrs Mallow for years without breathing it, and
who, last but not least, had judged himself once for all. He had so
judged himself in fact that he felt an extreme and general humility
to be his proper portion; yet there was nothing that made him think
so well of his parts as the course he had steered so often through the
shallows just mentioned. It became thus a real wonder that the friends
in whom he had most confidence were just those with whom he had