Brock! Would Brock ever come home to the room, to this place which he loved? Brock, in France! She turned sharply and went out through the long hall and across the terrace, and sat down where the steps dropped to the garden, on the broad top step, with her head against the pillar of the balustrade. Above her the smell of box in a stone vase on the pillar punctured the mild air with its definite, reminiscent fragrance. Box is a plant of antecedents of sentiment, of memories. The woman inhaling its delicate sharpness, was caught back into days past. She considered, in rapid jumps of thought, events, episodes, epochs. The day Brock was born, on her own twentieth birthday, up-stairs where the rosy chintz curtains blew now out of the window; the first day she had come down to the terrace--it was June--and the baby lay in his bassinet by the balustrade in that spot--she looked at the spot--the baby, her big Brock, a bundle of flannel and fine, white stuff in lacy frills of the bassinet. And she loved him; she remembered how she had loved that baby, how, laughing at herself, she had whispered silly words over the stolid, pink head; how the girl's heart of her had all but burst with the astonishing new tide of a feeling which seemed the greatest of which she was capable. Yet it was a small thing to the way she loved Brock now. A vision came of little Hugh, three years younger, and the two toddling about the terrace together, Hugh always Brock's satellite and adorer, as was fitting; less sturdy, less daring than Brock, yet ready to go anywhere if only the older baby led. She thought of the day when Hugh, four years old, had taken fright at a black log among the bushes under the trees. "It's a bear!" little Hugh had whispered, shaking, and Brock, brave but not too certain, had looked at her, inquiring. "No, love, it's not a bear; it's an old log of wood. Go and put your hand on it, Hughie." Little Hugh had cried out and shrunk back. "I'm afraid!" cried little Hugh. And Brock, not entirely clear as to the no-bear theory, had yet bluffed manfully. "Come on, Hughie; let's go and bang 'um," said Brock. Which invitation Hugh accepted reluctantly with a condition, "If you'll hold my hand, B'ocky." The woman turned her head to see the place where the black log had lain, there in the old high bushes. And behold! Two strong little figures in white marched along--she could all but see them today--and the bigger little figure was dragging the other a bit, holding a hand with masterful grip. She could hear little Hugh's laughter as they arrived at the terrible log and found it truly a log. Even now Hugh's laugh was music. "Why, it's nuffin but an old log o' wood!" little Hugh had squealed, as