compared with which Mr. Gladstone's are mere suggestions. Huge
white neckerchief. Black cloth from top to toe. I was sent to visit an
invalid lady somewhere in City Road. A total stranger. Place: A shop.
Room: At the tip-top of the house. The last part of the staircase was
exceedingly narrow and steep, the stairs themselves little broader than
a ladder. Tableau: A lady in bed, the only occupant of the room; a young
minister, nearly all head and shirt collar, the rest of him a mere
detail; the minister very shy and, as it were, "struck all of a heap" by
the novelty of his position. The young minister, nervously shy, sat
down, and the woman in white breathed a deep sigh. If my mother could
have spoken to me then, it would have been such a comfort. I felt as if
up in the clouds and the ladder had been stolen. There was not enough of
me to break into perspiration, or I should have broken. I know I should.
On this point I will brook no contradiction. There I sat. There were but
two of us, and oh! I felt so very high up, and so very far from the
police. Even the street noises seemed to be in another world, and that
world next but one to this. The silence was painful. At length the young
mother, not so very, very young, perhaps, turned her large brown eyes
upon me in a fixed and devouring way, and I can tell you what she said.
Shall I? Can you bear it? I could not. She said, with malignant
slowness, "I feel such a strong desire to kill somebody." I was the only
"body" in the room. How that young man got out of the chamber I could
never tell. He never revisited it. He was in the City Road as if by
magic. Did he pray with the woman? Not a word. Or she might have preyed
upon him.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Burgin recalls an incident.]

I remember a couple of incidents, both of which gave me unpleasant
dreams for some time. The first was in connection with that noble animal
which is so useful to man--when it suits him. I was staying out at the
Constantinople fortifications with my friend, Colonel A----, in a
delightfully picturesque little Turkish village called Baba Nakatch. We
had no drains, no amusements, no post--nothing but an occasional death
from typhoid to vary the monotony. When we tired of playing chess, we
rode out and inspected fortifications, _i.e._, my friend the Colonel
rode into a place with earthworks round it, majestically acknowledged
the salutes of the soldiers, and then rode out ag