dly barks have all perished on life's wide
ocean, and only that which seemed so little seaworthy, as the naval
phrase goes, has reached the port when the tempest is over. Then there
is the pool, where, manoeuvring our little navy, constructed out of the
broad water-flags, my elder brother fell in, and was scarce saved from
the watery element to die under Nelson's banner. There is the hazel
copse also, in which my brother Henry used to gather nuts, thinking
little that he was to die in an Indian jungle in quest of rupees.

There is so much more of remembrance about the little walk, that--as I
stop, rest on my crutch-headed cane, and look round with that species
of comparison between the thing I was and that which I now am--it almost
induces me to doubt my own identity; until I find myself in face of the
honeysuckle porch of Aunt Margaret's dwelling, with its irregularity of
front, and its odd, projecting latticed windows, where the workmen seem
to have made it a study that no one of them should resemble another in
form, size, or in the old-fashioned stone entablature and labels which
adorn them. This tenement, once the manor house of the Earl's Closes,
we still retain a slight hold upon; for, in some family arrangements,
it had been settled upon Aunt Margaret during the term of her life. Upon
this frail tenure depends, in a great measure, the last shadow of the
family of Bothwell of Earl's Closes, and their last slight connection
with their paternal inheritance. The only representative will then be an
infirm old man, moving not unwillingly to the grave, which has devoured
all that were dear to his affections.

When I have indulged such thoughts for a minute or two, I enter the
mansion, which is said to have been the gate-house only of the original
building, and find one being on whom time seems to have made little
impression; for the Aunt Margaret of to-day bears the same proportional
age to the Aunt Margaret of my early youth that the boy of ten years
old does to the man of (by'r Lady!) some fifty-six years. The old lady's
invariable costume has doubtless some share in confirming one in the
opinion that time has stood still with Aunt Margaret.

The brown or chocolate-coloured silk gown, with ruffles of the same
stuff at the elbow, within which are others of Mechlin lace; the black
silk gloves, or mitts; the white hair combed back upon a roll; and
the cap of spotless cambric, which closes around the venerable
countenan