midday
It would be better , certainly ; but -- For a young man of aristocratic appearance and faultlessly cut clothes to take a place at a crossing in his native town , and beg of the passers-by , some of whom would be personal friends , for coppers , requires moral courage ; he had been all his life , hence his misfortunes , a moral coward . So , of late , only spasmodically , and with a hopelessness that prepared defeat , did he make efforts to find occupation . But he was not naturally an idle man nor in all directions incompetent , and he watched the people passing to office , shop , workroom , with a gaze which had grown unspeakably wistful . * * * * * When the hour for the midday meal arrived , he had been wont to return to his brother 's house , but to-day he had something else to do . The road being emptied of the stream of passers-by which flowed more fully at that time , he got up and walked to the gate of the house where he had been born , and looked long within , upon the garden . It had always been a beautiful garden , full of flowering shrubs , and wide lawns , and winding , box-edged paths . Very little had it altered since to him it had seemed all the world , and he had the fancy to follow now about its sunny , shadowy ways into all its pleasant haunts , the figure of a little boy who had played there long ago .