Mr. North sat looking at his flowers. He had been sitting there for the past hour, buried in reflections that were not pleasant, and the morning was getting on. He thought of his embarrassments: those applications for money from madam, that he strove to hide from his well-beloved son Richard, and that made the terror of his life. They were apt to come upon him at the most unexpected times, in season and out of season; it seemed to him that he was never free from them; could never be sure at any moment she would not come down upon him the next. For the past few days the house had been, so to say, sacred from these carping concerns; even she had respected the sorrow in it; but with this morning, the return to everyday life, business and the world resumed its sway. Mr. North was looked upon as a man perfectly at his ease in money matters; "rolling in wealth," people would say, as they talked of the handsome portion his two daughters might expect on their wedding-day. Local debts, the liabilities of ordinary life, were kept punctually paid; Richard saw to that; and perhaps no one in the whole outer world, excepting Mrs. Gass, suspected the truth and the embarrassment. Mr. North thought of his other son, he who had gone from his view for ever; but the edge of grief was wearing off, though he was as eager as ever to discover the anonymous writer. But there is a limit to all things--I don't know what would become of some of us if there were not--and the mind cannot dwell for ever upon its own bitterness. Unhappy topics, as if in very weariness, gradually drifted away from Mr. North's mind, and were replaced by thoughts of his flowers. How could it be otherwise, when their scent came floating to him through the broad open window in delicious perfume. The colours charmed the eye, the aroma took captive the senses. Spring flowers, all; and simple ones. Further on, beyond the trees that bounded the grounds, a fine view was obtained of the open country over Dallory Ham. Hills and dales, woods and sunny plains, with here and there a gleam of glistening water, lay under the distant horizon. Mr. North looked not at the landscape, which was a familiar book to him, but at his flowers. The spring had been continuously cold and wet, retarding the appearance of these early flowers to a very late period. For the past week or two the weather had been lovely, and the flowers seemed to have sprung up all at once. A little later the tulip beds would be in bloom. A rare collection; a show for the world to flock to. Later on still, the roses would be out, and many thought they were the best show of all. And so the year went on, the flowers replacing each other in their loveliness.