of that which comes after; and of that which comes therein He lets us
learn just enough that we may know how much more there is.

And knowing and realizing these things, we may but go back as far toward
the beginning as it is in our power to see.

* * * * *

Before the restless, never-ebbing of the tides of business had
overwhelmed it with a seething flood of watered stocks and liquid
dollars, there stood on a corner of Fifth Avenue and one of its lower
tributaries, a stern, heavy-portalled mansion of brownstone. It was a
house not forbidding, but dignified. Its broad, plate-glass windows gazed
out in silent, impassive tolerance upon the streams of social life that
passed it of pleasant afternoons in Spring and Fall--on sleet-swept
nights of winter when 'bus and brougham brought from theatre and opera
their little groups and pairs of fur-clad women and high-hatted men. It
was a big house--big in size--big in atmosphere--big in manner.

At its left there was another big house, much like the one that I have
already described. It was possibly a bit more homelike--a bit less
dignified; for, possibly, its windows were a trifle more narrow, and its
portal a little less imposing. And across from that there lay a smaller
house--a house of brick; and this was much more inviting than either of
the others; for one might step from the very sidewalk within the broad
hall, hung with two very, very old portraits and lighted warmly with
shades of dull yellow, and of pink.

In the first of the big houses there lived a boy; and in the second there
lived another boy; and across, in the little house of brick, there lived