The poor thing built her house with her own hands; it was very narrow, its one window was all on one side, the door was too low, and the thatch on the roof might have been laid on better, but it gave her shelter and a home, and could be seen far over the sea, which sometimes burst over the trench in its might, and sprinkled a salt shower over the little house, which kept its place there years after he who made the bricks was dead and gone.

As for the second brother, he learned to build after another fashion, as he had resolved.  When he was out of his apprenticeship, he buckled on his knapsack and started, singing as he went, on his travels.  He came home again, and became a master in his native town; he built, house after house, a whole street of houses; there they stood, looked well, and were a credit to the town; and these houses soon built him a little house for himself.  How?  Ask the houses, and they will give you no answer; but the people will answer you and say, “Why, of course, the street built him his house!” It was small enough, and had only a clay floor, but when he and his bride danced over it, the floor grew as smooth as if it had been polished, and from every stone in the wall sprung a flower, that looked as gay as the costliest tapestry.  It was a pretty house and a happy wedded pair.  The banner of the Masons’ Guild waved outside, and workmen and apprentices shouted “Hurra!” Yes, that was Something! and at last he died—­that, too, was Something!

Next comes the architect, the third brother.  He began as a carpenter’s apprentice, and ran about the town on errands, wearing a paper-cap; but he studied industriously at the Academy, and rose steadily upward.  If the street full of houses had built a house for his brother the mason, the street took its name from the architect; the handsomest house in the whole street was his—­that was Something, and he was Something!  His children were gentlemen, and could boast of their “birth”; and when he died, his widow was a widow of condition—­that is Something—­and his name stood on the corner of the street, and was in everybody’s lips—­that is Something, too!

Now for the genius, the fourth brother, who wanted to invent something new, something original.  Somehow the ground gave way beneath his feet; he fell and broke his neck.  But he had a splendid funeral, with music and banners, and flowery paragraphs in the newspapers; and three eulogiums were pronounced over him, each longer than the last, and this would have pleased him mightily, for he loved speechifying of all things.  A monument was erected over his grave, only one story high—­but that is Something!

So now he was dead, as well as his three elder brothers; the youngest, the critic, outlived them all, and that was as it should be, for thus he had the last word, which to him was a matter of the greatest importance.  “He had plenty of brains,” folk said.  Now his hour had struck, he died, and his soul sought the gates of heaven.  There it stood side by side with another soul—­old Mother Margaret from the trenches.