E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
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CHAPTER I.--NEVILLE'S BIRTHDAY
CHAPTER II.--MRS. HILARY'S BIRTHDAY
CHAPTER III.--FAMILY LIFE
CHAPTER IV.--ROOTS
CHAPTER V.--SEAWEED
CHAPTER VI.--JIM
CHAPTER VII.--GERDA
CHAPTER VIII.--NAN
CHAPTER IX.--THE PACE
CHAPTER X.--PRINCIPLES
CHAPTER XI.--THAT WHICH REMAINS
CHAPTER XII.--THE MOTHER
CHAPTER XIII.--THE DAUGHTER
CHAPTER XIV.--YOUTH TO YOUTH
CHAPTER XV.--THE DREAM
CHAPTER XVI.--TIME
CHAPTER XVII.--THE KEY
'As to that,' said Mr. Cradock, 'we may say that all ages are dangerousto all people, in this dangerous life we live.'
'Reflecting how, at the best, human life on this minute and perishingplanet is a mere episode, and as brief as a dream....'
Trivia: Logan Pearsall Smith.
Neville, at five o'clock (Nature's time, not man's) on the morning of herbirthday, woke from the dream-broken sleep of summer dawns, hot with theburden of two sheets and a blanket, roused by the multitudinous silvercalling of a world full of birds. They chattered and bickered about thecreepered house, shrill and sweet, like a hundred brooks running togetherdown steep rocky places after snow. And, not like brooks, and strangelyunlike birds, like, in fact, nothing in the world except a cuckoo clock,a cuckoo shouted foolishly in the lowest boughs of the great elm acrossthe silver lawn.
Neville turned on her face, cupped her small, pale, tanned face in hersunburnt hands, and looked out with sleepy violet eyes. The sharp joy ofthe young day struck into her as she breathed it through the wide window.She shivered ecstatically as it blew coldly onto her bare throat andchest, and forgot the restless birthday bitterness of the night; forgothow she had lain and thought "Another year gone, and nothing done yet.Soon all the years will be gone, and nothing ever will be done." Done byher, she, of course, meant, as all who are familiar with birthdays willknow. But what was something and what was nothing, neither she nor otherswith birthdays could satisfactorily define. They have lived, they haveeaten, drunk, loved, bathed, suffered, talked, danced in the night andrejoiced in the dawn, warmed, in fact, both hands before the fire oflife, but still they are not rea