"Doctor Johnson," continued Ruth, "named after the great Lexicographer in consideration of his astonishing fluency of speech. Doctor Johnson is Barbara’s only consolation." Basil suppressed a groan. The obstacle! The obstacle! "Yes, dear," said Barbara, who had come up with Marjolaine. She spoke with pretty melancholy, but with a side-glance at Basil. "Yes, dear, he speaks with Charles’s voice, and says the very things Charles used to say." Basil moved away. This was almost more than he could bear. "How lovely!" cried Marjolaine. "I wish I could hear him!" "Ah, no!" Barbara’s chubby face fell into the nearest approach to solemnity she could manage. "Not even you may share that melancholy joy. The things he says are too sacred." Sir Peter had sidled up to Basil. "I tell you, sir, that bird’s language would silence Billingsgate. The atmosphere of that room must be solid, sir—solid." Basil stared at him with amazed reproof, and the Admiral turned to Marjolaine. "Well, Missie, we all hope you ’ve grown to like the Walk?" "I love it! And so does Maman." The Admiral grew enthusiastic. He turned towards the houses glowing in the late sun. "It is a sheltered haven. Look at it! A haven of content! What says the poet? ’The world forgetting, by the world forgot.’" All had turned with him. They were just an ordinary, every-day set of people. There was not a poet among them, if we except Basil, and yet the Walk, basking in the evening sun, touched some chord in each heart. The Admiral saw his flag drooping in the still air, and remembered his fighting days; Mrs. Poskett thought of Sempronius, and her tea-kettle simmering on the hob; Ruth was grateful for the shelter her little house had given her in her misfortune; Barbara thought of Doctor Johnson and—must I say it?—of Basil; Basil thought of Barbara; Mr. Brooke-Hoskyn thought of patient, unattractive Selina, and the four baby girls; Marjolaine, in her fresh girlhood, could only think of how pretty the flowers looked in the window. Barbara exclaimed, "When the sunlight falls on it so, how lovely it is!" Basil looked into her blue eyes, and murmured, "It reminds me of the music I am at work on." "What is that?" cried Marjolaine. "It sounds beautiful—through the wall." The musician’s enthusiasm was kindled; he grew eloquent. "It is by a new German composer: a man called Beethoven. My old violin-master, Kreutzer, sent it me.—Ah! These new Germans! They are so complicated; so difficult. I am old-fashioned, you know. I had the honour of playing under Mr. Haydn at the Salomon concerts. Yes! and in the very first performance of his immortal Oratorio, ’The Creation,’ at Worcester. So perhaps I am prejudiced. Yet this new music is very wonderful; very heart-searching." He stopped abruptly, realising he was talking to deaf ears. Sir Peter came to his rescue.