"Peter," you said to me, "this has been a great day. It has been worth living for. I wouldn't have missed it for whatever's got to come. And if you're a real pal you won't let me forget that." And so I have reminded you. That was one of _your_ super-days, and you chose to make it your throne of judgment upon life. And you were right, Hugh, because you judged by the best, and life, like genius, must always be greater than even its highest gifts to us. Some day, when I too am glowering upon it from the windward side of a bronchitis-kettle, I hope there'll be an equally tactful fellow to remind me of this. Perhaps you'll be the fellow. Ever yours, P. H. XIV _To Miss Molly Harding, 91B Harley Street, London, W._ c/o DR. ROBT. LYNN, APPLEBROOK, DEVON, _May_ 6, 1910. MY DEAR HOUSEKEEPER, Twenty years ago your mother and I came down here for a fortnight's fishing to stay, just as we are staying now, and in the same month, too, with Bob Lynn and his wife. I remember that we wondered for quite six weeks if we could properly afford to do this. The house, you see--not 91B, but the tiny one at the end of Devonshire Street--had been so very costly in its demand for furniture, for rent, for wear and tear. The practice was so uncertain, seemed so desperately slow in growing. Was it safe to leave it? Would it be still there when we returned? And if not----? So we argued, and knew all the time that there was a far more important consideration than any of these tucked away in the upstairs part of our minds. Was it safe to leave her at only ten months old? Would she know us again when we came back? Could any one in the world take a great enough care of her? Perhaps you have never guessed what an important little person she was; and perhaps, even now, you decline, in that very calm and unimpassioned habit of yours, to believe it. But that must be because you have never properly studied the evidence. I wonder if you have ever seen, for instance, the clothes that she wore--such little clothes, but just look at them, every stitch as delicate as a tendril, and every dimple and pucker as soft as a wild bird's nest. There's never more than one person in the world who can make clothes like that; and nobody, not even her husband, knows where she learned the secret. And if this were only the husk, what then about the plump little kernel inside? I can remember the long discussions, and how at last two cold-blooded physicians, the one in Devonshire and the other in town, had their own way, and forced a mother from her babelet for two long, if health-giving, weeks. I can remember the arrival of a Miss Sarah Harding--admirablest of lay-mothers (God bless them all)--to take up her awful charge; and the hour or so during which she received instructions enough to cause a less iron brain to melt upon its pan. But she was a wonderful woman even then, and _somebody_ had to take care of the child.