"Mister" O'Neil could have revealed, we believe, what the shock was that we all decided Mr. Tatlock must have received early in life. The girls were convinced that this shock was emotional--an unhappy love affair, or the death of some dear friend. The boys, on the other hand, were inclined to talk about a purely physical catastrophe--a runaway accident, perhaps, or a blow on the head from a highway robber. For all of these surmises we had not the slightest foundation, except in fancy, and mature reflection leads to the conclusion that probably we were entirely in error. It seems now much more likely that this old bachelor's oddities were due to life-long frail health. And yet one can never be sure and somehow one glimpse of Mr. Tatlock which it was permitted one of the children to catch hinted, inexplicably and without any particular warrant, at other possibilities. It was the only out-of-door memory of him that is left. The boy, who still remembers well that spring day, was in the next yard, hanging over the fence looking into Mr. Tatlock's garden when he suddenly became aware that Mr. Tatlock himself was sitting on the bench in the circle the path made around the old tree. The old gentleman did not see the small spectator who had been betrayed into an unaccustomed quietness by the absence of companions and some subtle and unacknowledged influence of the first warm afternoon of the year. Nothing whatever happened, Mr. Tatlock sat there, looking up from time to time at the young leaves above him, tapping his stick on the soft turf and smiling to himself. Of what long-gone springs was he dreaming? It was clear that whatever his thoughts were, they were happy ones. Probably to most boys the ideal life is one that comprises "the joy of eventful living." Here for the first time it dawned upon this youthful interloper that one could be happy in quietness and seclusion. There were, it appeared, certain satisfactions in other careers than those of the cowboy and the soldier. Up to this time the boy had never been able to understand why heaven was so often spoken of as a place of rest. He did not understand wholly now, but a later comprehension had here its inception. And so let us remember Mr. Tatlock sitting, lost in meditation, in his garden. After all he was not without influence in his environment, unobtrusive soul that he was. He made himself felt in his little world. He counted. The boy who watched him over the fence that day thought of him again when he read in a recent essay: "The truth is that a man's life is the expression of his temperament and that what eventually matters is his attitude and relation to life . . . . not only his performance." * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Repeated chapter titles were deleted. Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Page 31, "activites" changed to "activities" (activities of their colleagues) Page 57, "orginality" changed to "originality" (wit, originality, sympathy)