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From a Bench in Our Square

Chapter 17: THE END
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About This Book

A series of short, tightly observed sketches centers on life around a neighborhood square, following the comings and goings of eccentric residents and street characters. Humorous episodes portray aspiring artists, officious landlords, odd tenants, and other local figures, with recurring attention to musical sounds, clocks, and everyday objects that shape communal rhythm. The vignettes move between anecdote and description, combining gentle satire and affectionate portraiture to examine social manners, small ambitions, and the routines that bind a modest urban community.

  “Ah, long-delayed to-morrow! Hearts that beat
  Measure the length of every moment gone.
  Ever the suns rise tardily or fleet
  And light the letters on a churchyard stone.—
  And still I say, ‘To-morrow we shall meet!’”

“May Probyn,” the librarian identified. “Too few people know her. A wonderful poem!”

Silence fell again, folding us and our thoughts in its kindly refuge. Rising, I crossed to the window and drew the curtain aside. A surging wind had swept the sky clear, all but one bank of low-lurking, western cloud shot through with naming crimson. In that luminous setting the ancient house across Our Square, grim and bleak no longer to my eyes, gleamed, through eyes again come to life, with an inconceivable glory. Behind me in the shadow, the measured voice of the witness to life and death repeated once more the message of imperishable hope:

  “And still I say, ‘To-morrow we shall meet.’”

THE END