“I do not know,” he answered her. “I don’t seem to care.” “Very beautiful,” he answered, “in the beginning.”!

She touched his hand lightly. Flossie fixed a relentless eye upon her. “He’ll wait till the bird has got a bit more than that to whisper to him,” she suggested.

“I shall be going away soon, for a little while,” she said. The talk had helped her to decision. “When I come back I will come and see you all. And you must all come and see me, now and then. I expect I shall have a flat of my own. My father may be coming to live with me. Good-bye. Do all you can to help him.” “It could be done with a little good will all round,” he continued, “and nine men out of every ten would be the better off. But they won’t even let you explain. Their newspapers shout you down. It’s such a damned fine world for the few: never mind the many. My father was a farm labourer: and all his life he never earned more than thirteen and sixpence a week. I left when I was twelve and went into the mines. There were six of us children; and my mother brought us up healthy and decent. She fed us and clothed us and sent us to school; and when she died we buried her with the money she had put by for the purpose; and never a penny of charity had ever soiled her hands. I can see them now. Talk of your Chancellors of the Exchequer and their problems! She worked herself to death, of course. Well, that’s all right. One doesn’t mind that where one loves. If they would only let you. She had no opposition to contend with—no thwarting and hampering at every turn—the very people you are working for hounded on against you. The difficulty of a man like myself, who wants to do something, who could do something, is that for the best part of his life he is fighting to be allowed to do it. By the time I’ve lived down their lies and got my chance, my energy will be gone.” And then there flashed remembrance of her mother. She, too, had laid aside herself; had thought that love and duty could teach one to be other than one was. The Ego was the all important thing, entrusted to us as the talents of silver to the faithful servant: to be developed, not for our own purposes, but for the service of the Master.