it, or more serious, that the lady is Leah and not Rachel.

The birth of the first child, a daughter, say, might similarly be considered a landmark; yet it is possible for a daughter to grow into a woman and never disturb or arrest her father's even tenor until the moment when she declares her intention of marrying a youth who is hateful to him. On the other hand, the loan of a halfpenny newspaper in a railway compartment may change a career.

The cinema will always have over mere writers the advantage of presenting the visible moving scene; but, with all this heavy artillery, not yet, I notice, has it been able to dispense with the assistance of our poor words. We still have to help it out. This being so, it is hard that we cannot share in the benefits of the alliance; for what novels could be set before our readers if only we could now and then resort to the ingenious and vivid resources of the film!

But this is a digression-in a book which was to have none. Let me forthwith introduce my hero and his mother, characteristically if not dramatically employed.

It was a winter's afternoon-one of many. The lamplighter had finished his round, and it was the best time of all: after tea. Scene: a Victorian sittingroom, with a whatnot in the corner. Dramatis personæ: Mrs. Sergison (aged 36), Rudd Sergison, her only child (aged 7 that day).

The comfortable scent of crumpets, which Rudd

had been toasting and his mother buttering, still lingered.

"Now," said Rudd, seating himself on a hassock at his mother's knee as she opened a book. His small grave face shone with a double glow: with the firelight and the anticipation of pleasure. A new book of stories was to be begun! A wonderful book. He had his mother's word for it.

"Are you quite settled?" she asked.

"Yes," said Rudd.

"Which shall it be?" she asked. "A funny one or a pretty one?"

"Are there both kinds?" Rudd asked.

"Oh yes," she said.

"It's really a good book?" he asked.

"Really," she said. "It was my favourite when I was a little girl, and I have been keeping it till you were seven, which was when it was given to me. Now which shall it be, a funny one or a pretty one?"

"Won't you choose for me?" said Rudd, "or," he added on a sudden and splendid inspiration, "couldn't we have one of each ?"

"Two?" she asked, affecting to be alarmed by his greed.

"Yes, two; and then" (taking courage from her tone) "two more!"

His mother laughed in a shocked voice.

"I'll name three funny ones first," she said, "and then three pretty ones. These are funny ones: 'Big

Claus and Little Claus,' 'The Brave Tin Soldier,' 'The Tinder Box.' You're not too near the fire, are you?" "No," said Rudd.

His mother continued: "These are pretty ones: "The Bronze Boar,' 'The Fir Tree,' 'The Nightingale.' Now then?"

"Which would you say?" Rudd asked.

"No, I want you to choose," said Mrs. Sergison. "They're all perfect."

"Very well, then," said Rudd, thinking deeply. "First, we'll have 'The Brave Tinder Box,' and then

"That's two," said Mrs. Sergison. "You've mixed them up. It's 'The Brave Tin Soldier,' one, and "The Tinder Box,' two."

""The Tinder Box,'" said Rudd, "and then-then we'll have 'The Bronze Boar.'"

"Very well," said his mother. "You're quite sure you're not too near the fire?"

"Quite," said Rudd.

His mother began to read Hans Andersen's story of "The Tinder Box."

Ο

CHAPTER II

A PRESENT FOR A GOOD BOY

NE of the less invulnerable dispensations of

Providence is the early age at which we lose our grandfathers. It is as though the All-Knowing said: "I am so perfectly sure that you would never profit by the ripe experience which your grandfather has to offer you that you shall not even have the opportunity of hearing it." The loss is ours, perhaps, more than theirs. But how little fun we should have, some of us, if this arrangement as to experience being nontransferable had never been made.

Most grandfathers die when their grandchildren are very young; many before these are born. Rudd was not old enough to appreciate his grandfather before it was too late; but he loved Sunday morning because after church his father, mother and himself always visited the old people's house and walked in the garden, where, on the edges of the smoothest and greenest lawn, and in circular and oval beds cut in it, were the reddest geraniums, the yellowest calceolarias and the bluest lobelias. For those were the days when all the fashionable flowers that we now worship were to be

found only in cottage gardens. Gentlemen's places were distinguished by their geraniums, and carpet bedding was the only correct thing. Herbaceous borders were an eccentricity, a bid for an odd reputation.

Having walked about the lawn as long as he wished, Rudd used to slip off to the greenhouse to hunt for the tortoise and pinch the fuchsia buds to make them go pop, for in those days fuchsias were still thought beautiful by the old and found entertaining by the young. He would then pick a lemon verbena leaf and carry it to his mother. On a week-day Rudd would hasten to possess himself of a croquet mallet, but on Sundays no croquet was allowed, nor were the hoops and coloured sticks left up, but all put away in their box, so that not even the venial offence of ringing the bell in the central cage was left. None the less the Sunday visit, with all the innocuous mildness of its excitements, was a treasured event.

Rudd's grandfather, his mother's father, was smooth shaven, with very white soft hair. He dressed in black with a wide-brimmed tall hat.

Whenever a grandchild was born he gave it a sovereign and was much entertained by the way in which the baby treated it. Rudd at once allowed his coin to fall on the floor. "Tut, tut! a spendthrift!" said his grandfather, chuckling. In the pocket of the first knickerbockers there was always a shilling from the same hand. For years Rudd believed that it was a present from the tailor; and indeed, not till he was a grown man did he cease to feel for a coin in any new