farming and in land he had seemed to be greatly taken with his nephew and it had been under fortune stood that he would leave him the greater part if not the whole of his fortune but mr had come under the influence of some poor relations some distant cousins the and had eventually decided to adopt their daughter and leave her his fortune he did not dare intimate his change of mind to his sister but the news having reached mrs price in various she wrote to her brother asking him to confirm or deny these and when he admitted their truth mrs price never spoke to him again she was a determined woman and the remembrance of the wrong done to her son never left her while the other children had been a torment and disgrace had been to his parents a consolation and a blessing they had feared that he too might turn to and drink but he had never shown sign of low tastes he played no games nor did he care for or horses but for books and drawing and long country walks immediately on hearing of his he had spoken at once of entering a profession and for many months this was the subject of consideration in the joined in these dis vain fortune willingly but he could not bring himself to accept the army or the bar it was indeed only necessary to look at him to see that neither soldier s nor lawyer s wig was intended for him and it was nearly as clear that those earnest eyes so intelligent and yet so in their gaze were not those of a doctor but his eyes failed to his future his hands told the story of his life distinctly enough � those long white hands what could they mean but art and very soon began to draw some natural then an artist came into the neighborhood the two became friends and went together on a long tour life in the open air the shade of the hedge the glare of the highway the meditation of the field the languor of the the contemplation of wooded was what s pastoral nature was most fitted to enjoy and for the sake of the life it afforded he pursued the calling of a landscape painter long after he had begun to feel his desire turning in another direction when the landscape on the canvas seemed hopelessly inadequate he laid aside the brush for the pencil and strove to interpret the vain fortune summer fields in from verse he drifted into the article and the short story and from the story into the play and it was in this last form that he felt himself strongest and various were the and that he dreamed from year s end to year s end while he was in the midst of his period of verse writing his mother died and in the following year just as he was working at his stories he received a calling him to attend his father s death bed the old man was laid in the shadow of the weather beaten village church and gathered all his and bade farewell forever to the sitting in the railway carriage he watched the long line running on to london � london beginning in the fields a line of lamps stretching behind the sleeping cattle houses then fields again gardens then a bridge and the street below with yellow lights the train shook springing from rail to rail � there was the immense thames its gray indefinite in london made few friends there were some two or three men with whom he was frequently seen � quiet folk like himself whose enjoyment consisted in smoking a fortune pipe in the evening or going for long walks in the country he was one of those men whose curiosity and his friends noticed and wondered why it was that he was so frequently the theme of their conversation his simple unaffected manners were full of suggestion and in his writings there was always an rainbow like promise of ultimate achievement so long before he had succeeded in writing a play detached scenes and occasional verses led his friends into gradual belief that he was one from whom big things might be expected and when the one act play which they had all so heartily approved of was produced and the newspapers praised it the writer to try again the friends took pride in this public of their opinion after the production of his play every saturday evening some fifteen or twenty men used to in s lodgings to drink smoke cigars and talk drama encouraged by his success wrote divorce the play was refused twice and then accepted by a theatrical to whom it seemed to afford opportunity for the exhibition of the talent of a lady he was interested in fortune there was merit in the play one section of the press spoke of foul while another said at last a literary play can be witnessed in london the life of the play was brief but in dying it left a legend behind � a l end of talent a legend of a good play killed by bad acting and so it was that the production of an tide s second play was a theatrical event of importance some of the critics argued that it contained scenes as fine as any in divorce but it was admitted on all sides that the interest withered in the later acts the next three years wasted in various he explained the difference between the romantic and methods in the he played with a poetic drama to be called the king of ttie beggars and it was not until the close of the third year that he settled down to definite work then all his energies were concentrated on a new play � the a young woman of origin is suddenly 