ining-room on the Turkey
carpet of her fathers; she regulated her day by the excellent black
marble clock on the mantelpiece which she remembered from childhood; her
walls were entirely covered by the photographs her illustrious deceased
friends had given either herself or her father, with their own
handwriting across the lower parts of their bodies, and the windows,
shrouded by the maroon curtains of all her life, were decorated besides
with the selfsame aquariums to which she owed her first lessons in
sealore, and in which still swam slowly the goldfishes of her youth.

Were they the same goldfish? She did not know. Perhaps, like
carp, they outlived everybody. Perhaps, on the other hand, behind the
deep-sea vegetation provided for them at the bottom, they had from time
to time as the years went by withdrawn and replaced themselves. Were
they or were they not, she sometimes wondered, contemplating them
between the courses of her solitary means, the same goldfish that had
that day been there when Carlyle--how well she remembered it--angrily
strode up to them in the middle of some argument with her father that
had grown heated, and striking the glass smartly with his fist had put
them to flight, shouting as they fled, "Och, ye deaf devils! Och, ye
lucky deaf devils! Ye can't hear anything of the blasted, blethering,
doddering, glaikit fool-stuff yer maister talks, can ye?" Or words to
that effect.

Dear, great-souled Carlyle. Such natural gushings forth; such
true freshness; such real grandeur. Rugged, if you will--yes,
undoubtedly sometimes rugged, and startling in a drawing-room, but
magnificent. Who was there now to put beside him? Who was there to
mention in the same breath? Her father, than whom no one had had more
flair, said: "Thomas is immortal." And here was this generation, this
generation of puniness, raising its little voice in doubts, or, still
worse, not giving itself the trouble to raise it at all, not--it was
incredible, but it had been thus reported to her--even reading him.
Mrs. Fisher did not read him either, but that was different. She had
read him; she had certainly read him. Of course she had read him.
There was Teufelsdroeck--she quite well remembered a tailor called
Teufelsdroeck. So like Carlyle to call him that. Yes, she must have
read him, though naturally details escaped her.

The gong sounded. Lost in reminiscence Mrs. Fisher had forgotten
time, and hastened to her bedroo