He had been shut away by his concentrated work in Cedersholm's studio from outside interests. He had no friends in New York but the children. No friend but his aunt, who had borrowed of him nearly all he possessed, no sympathizers but the little old ladies, no consolations but his visions. In the May evenings, now warm, he sat on a bench in Central Park, listlessly watching the wind in the young trees and the voices of happy children on their way to the lake with their boats. He began to have a proper conception of his own single-handed struggle. He began to know what it is, without protection or home or any capital, to grapple with life first-hand. "Why, _art is the longest way in the world_," he thought. "It's the rudest and steepest, and to climb it successfully needs colossal _genius_, as well as the other things, and it needs money." He went slowly back to his lodging and his hall room. Along the wall his array of boots, all in bad condition--his unequal boots and his deformity struck him and his failure. A mist rose before his eyes. Over by the mirror he had pinned the sketch he liked the best. * * * * * On Sunday afternoon, in his desire to see the children, he forgot his distaste of meeting the master of the house, and rang the bell at an hour when Carew was likely to be at home. He had, too, for the first time, a wish to see the man who had made a success of his own life. Whatever his home and family were--_Carew_ was a success. Fairfax often noted his uncle's name mentioned at directors' meetings and functions where his presence indicated that the banker was an authority on finance. Ever since Mrs. Carew had borrowed money of him, Fairfax had been inclined to think better of his uncle. As the door opened before him now he heard singing, and though the music was a hymn, it rolled out so roundly, so fully, so whole-heartedly, that he knew his uncle must be out. The three were alone at the piano, and the young man's face brightened at the sight of the children. On either side of their mother Bella and Gardiner were singing with delight the little boy's favorite hymn. "No parting yonder, All light and song, The while I ponder And say 'how long Shall time me sunder From that glad throng?'" Curious how syllables and tones and inflections can contain and hold our feelings, and how their memory makes a winding-sheet. Fairfax came in quietly, and the singers finished their hymn. Then the children fell upon him and, as Gardiner said, "Cousin Antony _always did_," he "gobbled them up." "You might have _told_ us you were ill," Bella reproved him. "When I heard I made some wine jelly for you, but it wobbled away, and Gardiner drank it." "It wasn't _weal_ wine," said the little boy, "or _weal_ jelly...." Fairfax glanced toward his aunt, unconsciously looking to her for comfort on this trying day.