story of the brief lives of the children, much to the amazement of that
faculty, which was little accustomed to the simplicities. Nevertheless,
before he had written three chapters, he knew that he was at work upon a
masterpiece--and more: he was experiencing a pleasure so keen that once
and again his hand trembled, and he saw the page through a mist.
Although his characters had always been objective to himself and his
more patient readers, none knew better than he--a man of no
delusions--that they were so remote and exclusive as barely to escape
being mere mentalities; they were never the pulsing living creations of
the more full-blooded genius. But he had been content to have it so. His
creations might find and leave him cold, but he had known his highest
satisfaction in chiselling the statuettes, extracting subtle and
elevating harmonies, while combining words as no man of his tongue had
combined them before.

But the children were not statuettes. He had loved and brooded over them
long ere he had thought to tuck them into his pen, and on its first
stroke they danced out alive. The old mansion echoed with their
laughter, with their delightful and original pranks. Mr. Orth knew
nothing of children, therefore all the pranks he invented were as
original as his faculty. The little girl clung to his hand or knee as
they both followed the adventurous course of their common idol, the
boy. When Orth realized how alive they were, he opened each room of his
home to them in turn, that evermore he might have sacred and poignant
memories with all parts of the stately mansion where he must dwell alone
to the end. He selected their bedrooms, and hovered over them--not
through infantile disorders, which were beyond even his
imagination,--but through those painful intervals incident upon the
enterprising spirit of the boy and the devoted obedience of the girl to
fraternal command. He ignored the second Lord Teignmouth; he was himself