e house; and crossing the threshold, I know by instinct
that this mirror will stand over the mantelpiece in the bare room to
the left. I know also to whom those four suppressed voices will
belong that greet me while yet my hand is on the latch.
Four children are within--three girls and a boy--and they are
disputing over a box of wooden soldiers. The eldest girl, a plain
child with reddish-brown eyes, and the most wonderfully small hands,
snatches up one of the wooden soldiers, crying, "This is the Duke of
Wellington! This shall be the Duke!" and her soldier is the gayest
of all, and the tallest, and the most perfect in every part.
The second girl makes her choice, and they call him "Gravey" because
of the solemnity of his painted features. And then all laugh at the
youngest girl, for she has chosen a queer little warrior, much like
herself; but she smiles at their laughter, and smiles again when they
christen him "Waiting Boy." Lastly the boy chooses. He is handsomer
than his sisters, and is their hope and pride; and has a massive brow
and a mouth well formed though a trifle loose. His soldier shall be
called Bonaparte.

Though the door is closed between us, I can see these motherless
children under this same blue mirror--the glass that had helped to
pale the blood on their mother's face after she left the warm Cornish
sea that was her home, and came to settle and die in this bleak
exile. Some of her books are in the little bookcase here. They were
sent round from the West by sea, and met with shipwreck. For the
most part they are Methodist Magazines--for, like most Cornish folk,
her parents were followers of Wesley--and the stains of the salt
water are still on their pages.

I know also that the father will be sitting in the room to my right--
sitting at his solitary meal, for his digestion is queer, and he
prefers to dine alone: a strange, small, purblind man, full of sorrow
and strong will. He is a clergyman, but carries a revolver always in
his pocket by day, and by night sleeps with it under his pillow.
He has done so ever since some one told him that the moors above were
unsafe for a person with his opinions.

All this the glass shows me, and more. I see the children growing
up. I see the girls droop and pine in this dreary parsonage, where
the winds nip, and the miasma from the churchyard chokes them.
I see the handsome promising boy going to the devil--slowly at first,
then by strides. As their