I had not previously complained of the motor, but I was wishing then
that it would cease its poignant imitation of a little dead boy, a
boy who would play no more. By the touch of Dorothy's sleeve against
mine I knew that she could hear it too. And the miles flew by, green
and brown and golden, while I wondered what use I might be in the
world, who could not help a child to forget, Possibly there was
another way, I thought. "Tell me how it happened," I said. Dorothy looked at me with inscrutable eyes, and spoke in a voice
without emotion. "He caught a cold, and was very ill in bed. I went in to see him,
and he was all white and faded. I said to him, `How are you Edward?' and he said, `I shall get up early in the morning to catch beetles.' I didn't see him any more." "Poor little chap!" I murmured. "I went to the funeral," she continued monotonously, "It was very
rainy, and I threw a little bunch of flowers down into the hole. There was a whole lot of flowers there; but I think Edward liked
apples better than flowers." "Did you cry?" I said cruelly. She paused. "I don't know. I suppose so. It was a long time ago; I
think I have forgotten." Even while she spoke I heard Edward puffing along the sands: Edward
who had been so fond of apples. "I cannot stand this any longer," I said aloud. "Let's get out and
walk in the woods for a change." She agreed, with a depth of comprehension that terrified me; and the
motor pulled up with a jerk at a spot where hardly a post served to
mark where the woods commenced and the wayside grass stopped. We took
one of the dim paths which the rabbits had made and forced our way
through the undergrowth into the peaceful twilight of the trees. "You haven't got very sunburnt this year," I said as we walked. "I don't know why. I've been out on the beach all the days. Sometimes I've played, too." I did not ask her what games she had played, or who had been her
play-friend. Yet even there in the quiet woods I knew that Edward was
holding her back from me. It is true that, in his boy's way, he had
been fond of me; but I should not have dared to take her out without
him in the days when his live lips had filled the beach with song,
and his small brown body had danced among the surf. Now it seemed
that I had been disloyal to him. And presently we came to a clearing where the leaves of forgotten
years lay brown and rotten beneath our feet, and the air was full of
the dryness of death. "Let's be going back. What do you think, Dorothy?" I said. "I think," she said slowly,--"I think that this would be a very good
place to catch beetles." A wood is full of secret noises, and that is why, I suppose, we
heard a pair of small quick feet come with a dance of triumph
through the rustling bracken. For a minute we listened deeply, and
then Dorothy broke from my side with a piercing call on her lips. "Oh, Edward, Edward!" she cried; "Edward!" But the dead may play no more, and presently she came back to me with
the tears that are the riches of childhood streaming down her face. "I can hear him, I can hear him," she sobbed; "but I cannot see him. Never, never again." And so I led her back to the motor. But in her tears I seemed to
find a promise of peace that she had not known before. Now Edward was no very wonderful little boy; it may be that he was
jealous and vain and greedy; yet now, it seemed as he lay in his
small grave with the memory of Dorothy's flowers about him, he had
wrought this kindness for his sister. Yes, even though we heard no
more than the birds in the branches and the wind swaying the scented
bracken; even though he had passed with another summer, and the dead
and the love of the dead may rise no more from the grave. The Story Of A Book

                            I. THE WRITER

The history of a book must necessarily begin with the history of its
author, for surely in these enlightened days neither the youngest nor
the oldest of critics can believe that works of art are found under
gooseberry-bushes or in the nests of storks. In truth, I am by no
means sure that everybody knew this before the publication of "The
Man Shakespeare," and for the sake of a mystified posterity it may be
well to explain that there was once a school of criticism that
thought it indecent to pry into that treasure-house of individuality
from which, if we reject the nursery hypotheses mentioned above, it
is clearly obvious that authors derive their works. That the drama
must needs be closely related to the dramatist is just one of those
simple discoveries that invariably elude the subtle professional
mind; but in this wiser hour I may be permitted to assume that the
author was the conscious father of his novel, and that he did not
find it surprisingly in his pocket one morning, like a bad shilling
taken in change from the cabman overnight. Before he published his novel at the ripe age of thirty-seven the
author had lived an irreproachable and gentlemanly life. Born with at
least a German-silver spoon in his mouth, he passed, after a normally
eventful childhood, through a respectable public school, and spent
several agreeable years at Cambridge without taking a degree. He then
went into his uncle's office in the City, where he idled daily from
ten to four, till in due course he was admitted to a partnership,
which enabled him to reduce his hours of idleness to eleven to three. These details become important when we reflect that from his
childhood on the author had a great deal of time at his disposal. If
he had been entirely normal, he would have accepted the conventions
of the society to which he belonged, and devoted himself to motoring,
bridge, and the encouragement of the lighter drama. But some
deep-rooted habit of his childhood, or even perhaps some remote
hereditary taint, led him to spend an appreciable fraction of his
leisure time in the reading of works of fiction. Unlike most lovers
of light literature, he read with a certain mental concentration, and
was broad-minded enough to read good novels as well as bad ones. It is a pleasant fact that it is impossible to concentrate one's mind
on anything without in time becoming wiser, and in the course of
years the author became quite a skilful critic of novels. From the
first he had allowed his reading to colour his impressions of life,
and had obediently lived in a world of blacks and whites, of heroes
and heroines, of villains and adventuresses, until the grateful
discovery of the realistic school of fiction permitted him to believe
that men and women were for the most part neither good nor bad, but
tabby. Moreover, the leisurely reading of many sentences had given
him some understanding of the elements of style. He perceived that
some combinations of words were illogical, and that others were
unlovely to the ear; and at the same time he acquired a vocabulary
and a knowledge of grammar and punctuation that his earlier education
had failed to give him.