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141
THE LARK
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In the garden room Mr. Dix, having taken off what remained of his boots, sat warm by the fire, watching the steam rise from his wet jacket, now hanging from a chair-back before the blaze.

"The dears!" he said. "The splendid, brave, impetuous, quixotic dears! Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! And to think that only this morning I was asking myself if it was really worth while to go on with life. And all the time there was all this in the world. Beautiful!"