old!"

His eyes flashed a sudden fire under their shelving brows, and his right
hand clenched itself involuntarily.

"I suppose," he continued, "that a kind of harking back to the memories
of one's youth is common to all aged persons. With me it has become
almost morbid, for daily and hourly I see myself as a boy, dreaming away
the time in the wild garden of our home in Virginia,--watching the
fireflies light up the darkness of the summer evenings, and listening to
my sister singing in her soft little voice her favourite melody--'Angels
ever bright and fair.' As I said to you when we began this talk, I had
something then which I have never had since. Do you know what it was?"

Sir Francis, here finishing his cigar, threw away its glowing end, and
shook his head in the negative.

"You will think me as sentimental as I am garrulous," went on Helmsley,
"when I tell you that it was merely--love!"

Vesey raised himself in his chair and sat upright, opening his eyes in
astonishment.

"Love!" he echoed. "God bless my soul! I should have thought that you,
of all men in the world, could have won that easily!"

Helmsley turned towards him with a questioning look.

"Why should I 'of all men in the world' have won it?" he asked.
"Because I am rich? Rich men are seldom, if ever, loved for