ld you them,
and all the leaves jellied behind 'em, so as no washin' could save you
from swallowin' some, missus say?"

Sir Purcell rolled over on his side. "Is this going to be my epitaph?" he
groaned; for he was not a man particular in his diet, or exacting in
choice of roes, or panting for freshness in an egg. He wondered what his
landlady could mean by sending up to him, that morning of all others, to
tempt his appetite after her fashion. "I thought I remembered eating
nothing but toast in this place;" he observed to himself. A grunting
answer had to be given to the little maid, "Toast as usual." She appeared
satisfied, but returned again, when he was in his bath, to ask whether he
had said "No toast to-day?"

"Toast till the day of my death--tell your mistress that!" he replied;
and partly from shame at his unaccountable vehemence, he paused in his
sponging, meditated, and chilled. An association of toast with spectral
things grew in his mind, when presently the girl's voice was heard:
"Please, sir, did say you'd have toast, or not, this morning?" It cost
him an effort to answer simply, "Yes."

That she should continue, "Not sir?" appeared like perversity. "No aig?"
was maddening.

"Well, no; never mind it this morning," said he.

"Not this morning," she repeated.

"Then it will not be till the day of your death, as you said," she is
thinking that, was the idea running in his brain, and he was half ready
to cry out "Stop," and renew his order for toast, that he might seem
consecutive. The childishness of the wish made him ask himself what it
mattered. "I said 'Not till the day;' so, none to-day would mean that I
have reached the day." Shivering with the wet on his pallid skin, he
thought this over.

His landlady had used her discretion, and there was toast on the table. A
beam of Spring's morning sunlight illuminated the toast-rack. He sat, and
ate, and munched the doubt whether "not till" included the final day, or
stopped short of it. By this the state of his brain may be conceived. A
longing for beauty, and a dark sense of an incapacity to thoroughly enjoy
it, tormented him. He sent for his landlady's canary, and the ready
shrill song of the bird persuaded him that much of the charm of music is
wilfully swelled by ourselves, and can be by ourselves withdrawn: that is
to say, the great chasm and spell of sweet sounds is assisted by the
force of our imaginations. What is that force?--the heat and torrent o