To mourn the vanished friends I've known,
To kneel beside love's ruined bowers.
Ah, have I then seen fifty years,
With all their joys and hopes and fears!"

Through all the verses he ranged, his voice improving with each phrase,
growing more resonant, till at last it rang out with a ragged richness
which went home to the hearts of all. He was possessed. All at once he
was conscious that the beginning of the end of things was come for him;
and that now, at fifty, in no sphere had he absolutely "arrived," neither
in home nor fortune, nor--but yes, there was one sphere of success; there
was his fatherhood. There was his daughter, his wonderful Zoe. He drew
his eyes from the distance, and saw that her ardent look was not towards
him, but towards one whom she had known but a few weeks.

Suddenly he stopped in the middle of a verse, and broke forward with his
arms outstretched, laughing. He felt that he must laugh, or he would
cry; and that would be a humiliating thing to do.

"Come, come, my friends, my children, enough of that!" he cried. "We'll
have no more maundering. Fifty years--what are fifty years! Think of
Methuselah! It's summer in the world still, and it's only spring at St.
Saviour's. It's the time of the first flowers. Let's dance--no, no,
never mind the Cure to-night! He will not mind. I'll settle it with
him. We'll dance the gay quadrille."

He caught the hands of the two youngest girls present, and nodded at the
fiddler, who at once began to tune his violin afresh. One of the joyous
young girls, however, began to plead with him.