Ludlow flushed a little, and did not look at his friends.

"Wouldn't it be wonderful," he said, "to be loved and to be in love the
way his father and mother were. Maybe they were the ones that really
heard and saw, and--sang. We admire the lily, but we owe her to the
loves of the blind rain for the deaf and the dumb earth...."

Nobody spoke for some moments. It had been the only allusion that Ludlow
had made in years and years to that which had left him a lonely and a
cynical man.

"I wonder," Pedder mused, "how it ever occurred to a blind, deaf mute
that severing his wrist with his teeth would induce death?"

Gardiner shrugged his shoulders.

"It is always interesting," he said, "to know just which part of a
story--if any--is thought worthy of consideration by a given
individual."




THE BOOT

Mary Rex was more particularly _my_ nurse, for my sister Ellen, a
thoughtful, dependable child of eight, was her own mistress in
most matters.

This was in the days when we got our servants from neighborhood