d come back.
Something about Ma frightens them. She and Pa come near Rugby and stay
with Uncle Jack. The holidays come. I learn that for the first time
for about twenty years Ma is to go away without Pa. I am to meet her
at Hereford, and we are to go to Wales. Ma forgets things. She is more
loving than ever, but her memory is going. We go to communion together
in the little village church.

A few weeks later. We are back in Brighton. An Australian uncle and
family are staying with us. Ma is ill in bed. I get up at 6 A.M.,
tramp over the downs and in a place I wot of, some five miles away,
I gather heather for Ma. I run. I get back by 8.30. I find my uncle
and cousins getting into a cab. Some one says, "How lovely! Are these
for me?" I grip them in despair. They are for Ma. "Quite right," says
someone. A day or two later my heather was placed, still blooming, on
Ma's grave.

I was sixteen then. Six years later I return home from abroad. Within
a few weeks of my return I am sitting in Pa's room in agony, listening
to him fight for breath. The fight at last weakens. I hear him
whisper, "Help! help!" I set my teeth. The others come in. There
is silence. All is over. I am given my father's ring. It is my most
treasured possession.

Henceforth all I have left of home is Hilda, for she alone is
unmarried. Ever since my mother's death she has been my confidante.
As far as was possible she has taken Ma's place in my life, and I have
taken Hugh's place in hers. We are substitutes. For that reason as
we get older we get to know each other better, and to know better how
much we can give to each other. There is more criticism between us
than there would have been between Ma and me, and Hilda and Hugh. But
it has its advantages. We live apart, but we correspond weekly, and
holiday together. It is all that is left of home, and it is infinitely
precious.

Now that I have written these pages I can see as I have never seen
before how much the child was father of the man. Since those home days
I have had more variety of experience perhaps than falls to the lot
of most men, and I would almost say more varied and more epoch-making
friendships. Yet in these pages that I have written I seem to see all
the essential and salient features of my character already mirrored
and formed.

I am still by nature lethargic and placid. I could still occupy myself
contentedly With bricks and soldiers, art and history, and trouble
no one. But there