A NEIGHBOUR

THOUGH for many years, Michael Betts had lived in loneliness, his life had not always been so lonely. As a young man, he had had his widowed mother to care for, and a brother, some ten years younger than himself, had shared their home. There had been other children who had passed away in infancy. Only these two, the eldest and the youngest, remained, and the mother loved them passionately, if not wisely.

It was perhaps not strange that between brothers so widely parted by years, there should be no very close bond of sympathy. But the distinction between them was more marked than that which mere age would effect. Their characters were wholly different. The disposition of the elder brother had always been serious, his behaviour correct, his words and ways prudent and cautious beyond his years. The bearing of the other afforded a great contrast. Frank from boyhood was distinguished by wild spirits; he was restless and reckless in his ways, bent upon pleasure and regardless of its cost, and disposed to chaff his grave, prudent brother.

The two could not understand each other. Michael, conscious of his own rectitude, was keenly alive to his brother's faults, and disposed to think the very worst of him. He was vexed with his mother when she persistently found excuses for Frank's failings, and reiterated her fond belief that he "meant no harm," and would "come right some day."

Whilst she lived to keep peace in the home, there was no open breach between the brothers. Unhappily, she passed away ere Frank had fully attained to manhood. His mother's death was a grief to Michael. He had loved her truly, in spite of a sense of her incapacity and wrong-headedness on many points, notably on those which concerned her younger son. Sometimes it had almost seemed as if she loved Frank, in spite of all his faults, better than the son whose meritoriousness had ever been apparent.

Yet Michael meant well by his brother when their mother's death left them together. He had promised her when she lay dying that he would be as a father to Frank; and he intended to keep that promise. He would do his duty by Frank; he would care for him and look after his interests as an elder brother should. To be sure, he expected that Frank would respond as he should to his fraternal kindness, and show a fitting sense of what the bond between them entailed upon him. But such an expectation was most vain. Frank was what he had always been.

Shortly after his mother's death, Michael, who had been saving money carefully for years, whilst working diligently and acquiring business experience, was able to take the corner house and open a book-shop on his own account. He counted on Frank's assistance in working it. He thought the business would provide a future for his young brother as well as for himself. But it was a disastrous experiment he was now undertaking. Frank had little inclination to work steadily as his brother's assistant. His careless, irregular ways tried Michael's patience beyond endurance. He reproached his brother bitterly; but his rebukes only elicited insolence and defiance.

Frank left his brother in anger, and found a situation for himself elsewhere. He did not keep it long, however. From idle, he fell into sinful courses. Lower and lower he drifted, till Michael saw him only when he came to beg for relief from the starvation to which his profligacy had reduced him. Michael dreaded his appearance. He could not bear that any of his customers should know that such a disreputable man was his brother.

But he never refused Frank food or a night's lodging, till after one of these brief visitations he missed a valuable classic, and was convinced that his brother had stolen it. Then he vowed that he would do nothing more for Frank. If his brother dared to come near him again, thinking to lay thievish hands on his goods, he would give him in charge. No one could say that he had failed in his duty towards his brother. No, he had kept his promise to his mother as far as it was in his power to keep it. He could do no more. Frank must reap as he had sown.

Michael never had occasion to put his threat into execution. His brother, perhaps, divined too well what he might expect. However that might be, Michael saw his face no more, and was thankful not to see it. As years passed on and he heard no more of Frank, he was able to persuade himself that his brother was dead. And as this conviction deepened within him, it became easier and easier to banish from his mind the thought of his unhappy brother.

His business absorbed his whole attention. It prospered, and year by year he was able to lay by money. This result he found most satisfactory. Gradually, but surely, the love of gain became the chief passion of his soul. His own wants were few and simple, and he had no one besides himself on whom to spend money, so his savings grew apace, and he hugged to his heart the knowledge that he was making a nice little sum. He never asked himself what good the money was to do, or for whom he was saving it. He forgot that he was growing old, and that a time must soon come when he would have to leave all that he possessed. He loved to think that he was growing rich; never suspecting how miserably poor he was in all that makes the true wealth of human life.

It was rarely now that Michael gave a thought to his unhappy brother; but on the evening of the day which had surprised him by bringing such a quaint little customer to his shop, he found his mind strangely disposed to revert to his own early days. It was a most unusual thing for him to speak with a little child. He could not remember when he had done so before. Had he been asked if he liked children, he would have answered the question decidedly in the negative. He certainly detested the boys of the neighbourhood, who were wont to annoy him by hanging about his shop of an evening, and laying their careless fingers on his books, and who had very objectionable ways of retaliating when he reproved them. But a fair, dainty, blue-eyed, childlike Margery was quite another thing. Her sweet, rosy face, shaded by drooping curls, rose again and again before his mental vision, and her childish voice repeated itself in his ears as he sat patching and mending some of the shabbier of his books.

And somehow those sweet accents carried his memory back to the days of his own childhood. He remembered a little sister who had died; he recalled the bitterness of the tears he had shed as he looked on her still, marble face, lying in the little coffin; he saw his mother weeping as though her heart would break; he saw baby Frank looking in surprise from one to the other, wondering at their tears, but untouched by any sense of their sorrow. How vividly the scene rose before him again! His mother's face, the well-worn, shabby furniture, the very atmosphere of the old home seemed about him for the moment.

Yet how long ago it was! If the little sister had lived, she might now have been an anxious-looking mother herself, with grown-up children. And Frank—baby Frank—what had become of him? Dead, probably,—yes, surely he was dead, and better dead. But Michael heaved a sigh as he thought of his brother. He had not been so moved for years. Certainly the visit of that little maiden had exercised a softening influence upon him. How long it was since he had seen his brother!

His life altogether seemed long, as he looked back on it. Very, very old, the little girl had called him. She was wrong there; he was not so very old. But he was getting old. He could not deny that, and the thought caused him a throb of pain. For the first time, he felt his life to be narrow and contracted and unsatisfactory. He rose and walked up and down the limited space in which it was possible to move between the piled-up books. He drew aside the curtain which hung over the little door, and looked up at the stars shining brightly above the tall houses opposite. And he sighed again. What was making him feel so unlike himself to-night?

He half hoped that on the following day little Margery might again make her appearance in his shop. Would she forget her little debt to him? He hoped not. He did not care about the fourpence so much; but he did want to see the pretty little creature again. But throughout the day he looked for her in vain. Nor did she appear on the next, nor the next. He was conscious of disappointment. On the third day, however, he had news which concerned her.

A well-known customer entered the shop. But though he knew the man well as a customer, Michael knew very little of him. He was not interested in the lives of his customers, except where they touched his own. He knew this one to be a minister of some kind, and from the alacrity with which he dropped the theological books he desired, if their price were at all high, the bookseller imagined that money was not plentiful with him. The fact that this preacher often asked for works by Mr. Spurgeon proved nothing, since Michael's experience had taught him that the writings of that great preacher have a fascination for every species of religious teacher who tries to open his lips in public for the edification of his brother man.

"Good day, sir," said Michael, as his customer entered the shop. "What can I do for you to-day?"

"Good day, Mr. Betts. I really do not know that I want anything in particular, only, as I was passing close by, I could not resist the temptation to look in, just to see what you have. Your wares are always tempting to me."

"I'm glad to hear it, sir. Look round, and welcome. Take your time over it. There's a new lot of books here that I've purchased lately. Maybe you'd fancy some of them."

"Thanks, thanks," said the other, turning eagerly towards the books. He stood for some minutes examining them in silence. Suddenly he said, "Ah! Here is a book, I see, by Professor Lavers. It is very sad about him, is it not?"

"What about him, sir?" asked Michael, in surprise.

"What? You have not heard? How strange! And he, a neighbour of yours!"

"He lives in Gower Street, certainly, if that makes him a neighbour of mine," said Betts grimly; "but what is the matter with him, sir?"

"He is very ill indeed; the doctors think he cannot recover. It is a sad pity. A scientific man of such ability can ill be spared."

Michael made no reply. He stood dismayed. A curious sensation of pain smote him. He was not thinking of the loss to science. He was thinking of a certain little fair-haired, blue-eyed child, who would soon be fatherless, if this news were true.

"He was taken ill very suddenly, I believe," said the customer; "it is acute pneumonia. He has not been ill more than three or four days. Still, I wonder you have not heard, living so near."

"Such neighbourhood does not count for much in London, sir," replied Michael, rousing himself from his abstraction. "Persons may live next door to each other for years, and never learn each other's names. I should know nothing of Professor Lavers if he did not happen to be a customer of mine."

"I suppose that is so," said the minister thoughtfully. "I suppose nowhere can one attain such complete isolation as in this London. Its life must tend to harden human hearts into selfish indifference to the needs of others. Sad indeed were the life of man, if he were left to the mercies of his brother man. But it comforts me to think of the great love of God enfolding the sinful, sorrowful city, and the heart of God pitying the infinite struggles and woes of humanity. But I must not linger now. Good day, Mr. Betts."

"Good day," said Michael. He had hardly followed what the other was saying. It did not seem to him that the love of God in any perceptible degree brightened the life of man. But what could a man who was satisfied with himself, and never done anything wrong in his life, know of the love of God?