One afternoon chance led me into the little room which my mother called her own, a room I seldom entered. There was a small volume lying on the table and carelessly I took it up and glanced at the title. Then, with a quick exclamation of pleasure, I carried it away with me. It was Mr. Ravenor's first little volume of poems, which I had tried in vain to get. The Mellborough bookseller of whom I had ordered it told me that it was out of print. The first edition had been exhausted long since and the author had refused to allow a second edition to be issued. I met my mother in the hall and held out the volume to her. "You never told me that you had a copy of Mr. Ravenor's poems," I said reproachfully. "I have just found it in your room." She started, and for a moment I feared that she was going to insist upon my giving up the book. She did not do so, however; but I noticed that the hand which was resting upon the banister was grasping the handrail nervously, as though for support, and that she was white to the very lips. "No; I had forgotten," she said slowly--"I mean that I had forgotten you had ever asked for it. Take care of it, Philip, and give it me back to-night. It was given to me by a friend and I value it." I promised and left the house. My range of pleasures was in some respects a limited one, but it did not prevent me from being an epicure with regard to their enjoyment. I did not glance inside the book, although I was longing to do so, until I had walked five or six miles and had reached one of my favourite halting-places. Then I threw myself down in the shadow of a great rock on the top of Beacon Hill and took the volume from my pocket. It was a small, olive-green book, delicately bound, and printed upon rough paper. It had been given to my mother, evidently, for her Christian name was inside, written in a fine, dashing hand, and underneath were some initials which had become indistinct. Then, having satisfied myself of this, and handled it for a few moments, I turned over the pages rapidly and began to read. The first part was composed almost entirely of sonnets and love-poems. One after another I read them and wondered. There was nothing amateurish, nothing weak, here. They were full of glowing imagery, of brilliant colouring, of passion, of fire. Crude some of them seemed to me, who had read no modern poetry and knew many of Shakespeare's and Milton's sonnets by heart; but full of genius, nevertheless, and with the breath of life warm in them. The second portion was devoted to longer poems and these I liked best. There was in some more than a touch of the graceful, fascinating mysticism of Shelley, the passionate outcry of a strong, noble mind, seeking to wrest from Nature her vast secrets and to fathom the mysteries of existence; the wail of bewildered nobility of soul turning in despair from the cold creeds of modern religion to seek some other and higher form of spiritual life.