But assuredly not a man to be put together by piecemeal description such as this: the very secret of his immense influence being some charm of mystery, as there is mystery in all the people that win us and rule us and hold us; as though we pressed our ear against this mystery and caught there the sound of a meaning vaster than ourselves--not meant for us but flowing away from us along the unbroken channels of the universe: still to be flowing there long after we ourselves are stilled. * * * * * Thus he stood in his library that morning when his son left him, brought to a stop in the road of life as by a straw fallen at his feet borne on a rising wind--another harbinger of a coming storm. By and by not far away a door on that side of the house was slammed. The sound of muffled feet was heard on the porch and then the laughter of children as they bounded across the yard. As his ear caught the noises, he hurried to the window and looked out; and then he threw up the sash and hailed them loudly:-- "Ho, there! you winter snow-birds without wings!" As the children wheeled and paused, he smiled and shook his forefinger:-- "Remember to keep those two red mouths closed and to breathe through those two red noses!" and then as he recalled some exercises which he had lately been putting them through, he added with ironic emphasis, laughing the while:-- "And when you breathe, remember to bring into play those two invaluable little American diaphragms and those two priceless pairs of American ribs!" The little girl nodded repeatedly to indicate that she could understand if she would and would obey if she cared; and putting her red-mittened finger-tips to her lips, she threw him a good-by with a wide sweeping gesture of the arms to right and left. And the boy made a soldierly salute, touching a hand to his skull-cap with the uncouth rigor of a veteran in the raw: then they bounded off again. The doctor drew down the sash and watched them. A hundred yards from the house the ground sloped to a limestone spring at the foot of the hill--a characteristic Kentucky formation. From this spring issued a brook, on the banks of which stood a clump of forest trees, bathing their roots in the moisture. Upon reaching the brow of this hill, the boy lagged behind his sister as though to elude her observation; then turning looked back at his father--looked but made no sign: a little upright pillar of life on the brow of that declivity: then he dropped out of sight. A few moments later up over the hill where he was last seen a little cloud of autumn leaves came scurrying. As they neared the wall of the house where the wind by pressure veered skyward to clear the roof, some of the leaves were caught up and dashed against the windowpanes behind which the doctor was standing. Had the sash been raised, they would have thrown themselves into his arms and have clung to his neck and breast.