To Let

ite the condition of "Timothy's" on the Bayswater Road, for Timothy's soul still had one foot in Timothy Forsyte's body, and

ho, out of old-time habit or absent-mindedness, would drive up once in a blue moon and ask after their surviving uncle. Such were Francie, now quite emancipated from God (she frankly avowed athe

tration within him while he stood in full south sunlight on the newly whitened doorstep of that little house where four Forsytes had once lived, and now but one dwelt on like a winter fly; the house

unts Juley and Hester-brought a pale friendliness to Soames's lips; Smither, still faithfully arranged to old pattern in every detail, an invaluable servant-none s

is

as here last: It WOULD please Miss Forsyte and Mrs. Juley and Miss Hester to see how he relishes a baked apple still.

es. "What DID y

to Cook, 'If Mr. Timothy rings, they may do what they like-I'm going up. My dear mistresses would have a fit if they could see him ringing and nobody going to him.' But he slept through th

ting garrulous! "I just want to look roun

ow to get rid of. It's funny they should be there, and not a crumb, since Mr. Timothy took to not coming

leave h

morning, not to risk a change of air. And he's quite comfortable in himsel

ee him, if I can; in case h

ured up abov

hall I take you round the house, sir,

id Soames. "I can go ro

a faint smile curled Soames's lips and nostrils. Walls of a rich green surmounted the oak dado; a heavy metal chandelier hung by a chain from a ceiling divided by imitation beams. The pictures had been bought by Timothy, a bargain, one day at Jobson's sixty years ago-three Snyder "still lifes," two faintly coloured drawings of a boy and a girl, rather charming, which bore the initials "J.R."-Timothy had always believed they might turn out to be Joshua Reynolds, but Soames,

bought a brace of small libraries. The third wall he approached with more excitement. Here, surely, Timothy's own taste would be found. It was. The books were dummies. The fourth wall was all heavily curtained window. And turned towards it was a large chair with a mahogany reading-stand attached, on which a yellowish and folded copy of The Times, dated July 6, 1914, the day Timothy first failed to come down, as if in preparation for the war, seemed waiting for him still. In a corner stood a large globe of that world never visited by Timothy, deeply convinced of the unreality of everyt

ront of that case and saying: "Look, Soamey! Aren't they bright and pretty, dear little humming-birds!" Soames remembered his own answer: "They don't hum, Auntie." He must have been six, in a black velveteen suit with a light-blue collar-he remembered that suit well! Aunt Ann with her ringlets, and her spidery kind hands, and her grave old aquiline smile-a fine old lady, Aunt Ann! He moved on up to the drawing-room door. There on each side of it were the groups of miniatures. Those he would certainly bu

ut up a tablet, and show it? "Specimen of mid-Victorian abode-entrance, one shilling, with catalogue." After all, it was the completest thing, and perhaps the deadest in the London of to-day. Perfect in its special taste and culture, if, that is, he took down and carried over to his own collection the four Barbizon pictures he had given them. The still sky-blue walls, the green curtains patterned with red flowers and ferns; the crewel-worked fire-screen before the cast-iron grate; the mahogany cupboard with glass windows, full of little knick-knacks; the beaded footstools; Keats, Shelley, Southey, Cowper, Coleridge, Byron's "Corsair" (but nothing else), and the Victorian poets in a bookshelf row; the marqueterie cabinet lined with dim red plush, full of f

n now, of too many stuffs and washed lace curtains, lavender in bags, and dried bee's wings. 'No,' he thought, 'there's nothing like it left; it ought to be preserved.' And, by George, they might laugh at it, but for a standard of gentle life never departed from, for fastidiousness of skin and eye and nose and feeling, it beat to-day hollow-to-day with its Tubes and cars, its perpetual smoking, its cross-legged, bare-necked girls visible up to the knees and down to the waist if you took the trouble (agreeable to the satyr

a sort of yellow oilskin paper on the walls. At the top of the stairs he hesitated between four doors. Which of them was Timothy's? And he listened. A soun

able to get him to attend. If Mr. Soames would come

the back room a

-shaven, was covered with snowy beard clipped as short as it could be, and his chin looked as broad as his brow where the hair was also quite white, while nose and cheeks and brow were a good yellow. One hand held a stout stick, and the other grasped the skirt of his Jaeger dressing-gown, f

rong," said Soames

e him take his bath-it's won

e Soames an insight. Timot

est in things generally

, I always write the same, what they were when he last took notice, in 1914. We got the doctor to forbid him to read the paper when the war broke out. Oh! he did take on about that at first. But he soon came round, because he

Soames. "Would he remember me? I made his Wi

"I couldn't take on me to say. I think he mig

, waiting for Timothy to turn, sai

d back half-wa

" he

top of his voice, holding ou

ping his stick loudly on the

eem to work,"

lk. It always was one thing at a time with him. I expect he'll ask me this afternoo

ought to have a

. A strange man about would send him crazy in no time. And my mistresses wo

e the doc

quantity, and Mr. Timothy's so used, he doesn't ta

rning away, "it's rathe

really he does. As I say to Cook, Mr. Timothy is more of a man than he ever was. You see, when he's not walkin', or takin' his

mething in that. I'll go down. B

hat, sir; he keeps it under his pillow

made," said Soames; "you take a look

and Cook witnessed, you remember, and there's ou

ng in the Will that they might have no interest in Timothy's death. It had been-he fully admitted-an almo

ook after him, and if he should say anythin

. It's been such a pleasant change to see you

hinking; 'passes and begins again. Poor old chap!' And he listened, if perchance the sound of Timothy trailing his hobby-horse might come down the well of the stai

beam through the fanlight over the door. The little old house! A ma