long forgotten, and the strongest affection in his life had been for

Parsons. An only child of sociable tendencies necessarily turns his

back a good deal upon home, and the aunt who had succeeded his mother

was an economist and furniture polisher, a knuckle rapper and sharp

silencer, no friend for a slovenly little boy. He had loved other

little boys and girls transitorily, none had been frequent and

familiar enough to strike deep roots in his heart, and he had grown up

with a tattered and dissipated affectionateness that was becoming

wildly shy. His father had always been a stranger, an irritable

stranger with exceptional powers of intervention and comment, and an

air of being disappointed about his offspring. It was shocking to lose

him; it was like an unexpected hole in the universe, and the writing

of "Death" upon the sky, but it did not tear Mr. Polly's heartstrings

at first so much as rouse him to a pitch of vivid attention.

He came down to the cottage at Easewood in response to an urgent

telegram, and found his father already dead. His cousin Johnson

received him with much solemnity and ushered him upstairs, to look at

a stiff, straight, shrouded form, with a face unwontedly quiet and, as

it seemed, with its pinched nostrils, scornful.

"Looks peaceful," said Mr. Polly, disregarding the scorn to the best

of his ability.

"It was a merciful relief," said Mr. Johnson.

The History of Mr Polly