enough for four, and so on — it would be better to wait and see what Father did. Besides, it was nice to be able to takeholidays unhampered. Sooner in fact than own children, they preferred to concentrate on the ownership of themselves,conforming to the growing tendency fin de siecle, as it was called. In this way, little risk was run, and one would be ableto have a motor-car. Indeed, Eustace already had one, but it had shaken him horribly, and broken one of his eye teeth; sothat it would be better to wait till they were a little safer. In the meantime, no more children! Even young Nicholas wasdrawing in his horns, and had made no addition to his six for quite three years.

The corporate decay, however, of the Forsytes, their dispersion rather, of which all this was symptomatic, had notadvanced so far as to prevent a rally when Roger Forsyte died in 1899. It had been a glorious summer, and after holidaysabroad and at the sea they were practically all back in London, when Roger with a touch of his old originality had suddenlybreathed his last at his own house in Princes Gardens. At Timothy’s it was whispered sadly that poor Roger had always beeneccentric about his digestion — had he not, for instance, preferred German mutton to all the other brands?

Be that as it may, his funeral at Highgate had been perfect, and coming away from it Soames Forsyte made almostmechanically for his Uncle Timothy’s in the Bayswater Road. The ‘Old Things’— Aunt Juley and Aunt Hester — would like tohear about it. His father — James — at eighty-eight had not felt up to the fatigue of the funeral; and Timothy himself, ofcourse, had not gone; so that Nicholas had been the only brother present. Still, there had been a fair gathering; and itwould cheer Aunts Juley and Hester up to know. The kindly thought was not unmixed with the inevitable longing to getsomething out of everything you do, which is the chief characteristic of Forsytes, and indeed of the saner elements in every