eyes like my mother, or a high Roman nose and beetle brows like
Captain Roland? I mused and mused and mused; and the candle went out,
and the moonlight grew broader and stiller; till at last I was sailing
in a balloon with Uncle Jack, and had just tumbled into the Red Sea,
when the well-known voice of Nurse Primmins restored me to life with
a "God bless my heart! the boy has not been in bed all this 'varsal
night!"

CHAPTER IV.

As soon as I was dressed I hastened downstairs, for I longed to revisit
my old haunts,--the little plot of garden I had sown with anemones and
tresses; the walk by the peach wall; the pond wherein I had angled for
roach and perch.

Entering the hall, I discovered my Uncle Roland in a great state
of embarrassment. The maid-servant was scrubbing the stones at the
hall-door; she was naturally plump,--and it is astonishing how much more
plump a female becomes when she is on all-fours! The maid-servant, then,
was scrubbing the stones, her face turned from the Captain; and the
Captain, evidently meditating a sortie, stood ruefully gazing at the
obstacle before him and hemming aloud. Alas, the maidservant was deaf!
I stopped, curious to see how Uncle Roland would extricate himself from
the dilemma.

Finding that his hems were in vain, my uncle made himself as small as
he could, and glided close to the left of the wall; at that instant the
maid turned abruptly round towards the right, and completely obstructed,
by this manoeuvre, the slight crevice through which hope had dawned
on her captive. My uncle stood stock-still,--and, to say the truth, he
could not have stirred an inch without coming into personal contact with
the rounded charms which blockaded his movements. My uncle took off
his hat and scratched his forehead in great perplexity. Presently, by
a slight turn of the flanks, the opposing party, while leaving him an
opportunity of return, entirely precluded all chance of egress in that
quarter. My uncle retreated in haste, and now presented himself to the
right wing of the enemy. He had scarcely done so, when, without looking
behind her, the blockading party shoved aside the pail that crippled the
range of her operations, and so placed it that it formed a formidable
barricade, which my uncle's cork leg had no chance of surmounting.
Therewith Captain Roland lifted his eyes appealingly to Heaven, and I
heard him distinctly ejaculate--

"Would to Heaven she were a creature in breeches!"