one thing certain. When I get the money I'm going to—do things for those who have a better right to it than me. If I can, I want to do something for each one that he would have liked to do if he had got the money." He looked beseechingly at Ernest. "I want you to go to England for a trip, and to consult those books in the British Museum for your Commentary" He jerked his head toward the desk.
Ernest was touched. "Oh no. I could not think of doing that."
"Yes, you will! To please me. And Uncle Nick—and the others—something nice for each one!" His eyes were almost radiant.
"Well, well, we'll see. It's very handsome of you, anyhow." A light was roused in his eyes, too. Then he looked meditative. He said: "There's one person for whom I should like you to do something. Someone who, at present, can't do much for himself. He does need help, and he's so very brilliant. I don't want to see him forced into some work that will take away his impulse toward poetry."
"You mean Eden?" Great Scott, he had never thought of Eden! Yet it was true enough what Uncle Ernest said.
"I wonder what I could do for him?"
Ernest said, almost cheerfully: "You will know when the time comes. I only wish something could be done now. He's so much stronger, but he must be taken care of. He could come home if it weren't for Piers."
"Well, I'll see what I can do," and Finch left, feeling an almost tumultuous sense of responsibility for his family.
He did not see Piers until dinner, when he came in bare-throated, healthy, bright-eyed, after driving a good bargain for a carload of apples. He grinned at Finch, with derision rather than malice, and, after they were seated at table, said: "No wonder you took to your bed! I'd have done the same if I had got it."
"For God's sake," returned Finch, in a whisper, "shut up!" But even this meeting was much easier than he had expected. Life was going on at Jalna, the
