The older man leaned closer, his face alight, his manner shyly, eagerly confidential. The morning sunshine blazed upon his untidy hair. A bread crumb from breakfast still balanced in his beard. 'It's difficult to tell in a few words, you see,' he began, the enthusiasm of a boy in his manner, 'but--I woke with the odd idea that this little village might be an epitome of the world. All the emotions of London, you see, are here in essence--the courage and cowardice, the fear and hope, the greed and sacrifice, the love and hate and passion--everything. It's the big world in miniature. Only--with one difference.' 'That's good,' said Rogers, trying to remember when it was he had told his cousin this very thing. Or had he only _thought_ it? 'And what _is_ the difference?' 'The difference,' continued the other, eyes sparkling, face alight, 'that here the woods, the mountains and the stars are close. They pour themselves in upon the village life from every side--above, below, all round. Flowers surround it; it dances to the mountain winds; at night it lies entangled in the starlight. Along a thousand imperceptible channels an ideal simplicity from Nature pours down into it, modifying the human passions, chastening, purifying, uplifting. Don't you see? And these sweet, viewless channels--who keeps them clean and open? Why, God bless you----. The children! _My_ children!' 'By Jingo, yes; _your_ children.' Rogers said it with emphasis. But there was a sudden catch at his heart; he was conscious of a queer sensation he could not name. This was exactly what he had felt himself--with the difference that his own thought had been, perhaps, emotion rather than a reasoned-out idea. His cousin put it into words and gave it form. A picture--had he seen it in a book perhaps?--flashed across his mind. A child, suspiciously like Monkey, held a pen and dipped it into something bright and flowing. A little boy with big blue eyes gathered this shining stuff in both hands and poured it in a golden cataract upon the eyelids of a sleeping figure. And the figure had a beard. It was a man ... familiar. ... A touch of odd excitement trembled through his undermind ... thrilled ... vanished. ... All dived out of sight again with the swiftness of a darting swallow. His cousin was talking at high speed. Rogers had lost a great deal of what he had been saying.