e toll-house. I remember this
toll-house so well because it was there that my childhood fell from me,
and sad and frightened I saw the world beyond.

I cannot explain it better. I had been that afternoon to Plaistow on a
visit to the family dentist. It was an out-of-the-way place in which to
keep him, but there existed advantages of a counterbalancing nature.

"Have the half-crown in your hand," my mother would direct me, while
making herself sure that the purse containing it was safe at the bottom
of my knickerbocker pocket; "but of course if he won't take it, why, you
must bring it home again."

I am not sure, but I think he was some distant connection of ours; at
all events, I know he was a kind friend. I, seated in the velvet chair
of state, he would unroll his case of instruments before me, and ask me
to choose, recommending with affectionate eulogisms the most murderous
looking.

But on my opening my mouth to discuss the fearful topic, lo! a pair
would shoot from under his coat-sleeve, and almost before I knew what
had happened, the trouble would be over. After that we would have
tea together. He was an old bachelor, and his house stood in a great
garden--for Plaistow in those days was a picturesque village--and out of
the plentiful fruit thereof his housekeeper made the most wonderful
of jams and jellies. Oh, they were good, those teas! Generally our
conversation was of my mother who, it appeared, was once a little girl:
not at all the sort of little girl I should have imagined her; on the
contrary, a prankish, wilful little girl, though good company, I should
say, if all the tales he told of her were true. And I am inclined to
think they were, in spite of the fact that my mother, when I repeated
them to her, would laugh, saying she was sure she had no recollection of
anything of the kind, adding severely that it was a pity he and I could
not find something better to gossip about. Yet her next question would
be:

"And what else did he say, if you please?" explaining impatiently when
my answer was not of the kind expected: "No, no, I mean about me."

The tea things cleared away, he would bring out his great microscope.
To me it was a peep-hole into a fairy world where dwelt strange dragons,
mighty monsters, so that I came to regard him as a sort of harmless
magician. It was his pet study, and looking back, I cannot help
associating his enthusiasm for all things microscopical with the fact
that he was an exc