w exactly opposite our own. We could see quite
plainly into the room, and its occupant could see into ours.

This was a small young man with a pale face. So much I remember of him;
and the fact that the sight of prominent dark eyes and a runaway chin
always recalls to me this episode in my childhood's career, inclines me
to believe that that conformation of features was his.

The room had been empty like our own till one day a bed had been set up
in it, and a chair and a washstand; and after that the young man had
appeared.

"It isn't his play-room, it's his bedroom; he's another lodger at
Miller's," Willy informed me.

When we were not at play we used to sit at the window and watch him. He
did not go to an office, like our father. He seemed to have nothing to
do. Sometimes he stood before the window and looked across at us, but
oftenest he lay on his back on his bed and stared at the ceiling.

"I should jolly well like to have my bedroom up here, and never take
off my clothes when I go to bed," Willy said, enviously.

It is curious to remember what a new interest that silent watcher of us
gave to our gambols. It was with one eye on the pale young man at the
window that I marched to the tune of Old Bob Ridley on the field of
Waterloo; and Willy became so painfully realistic in giving me my
quietus, when I lay dying and at his mercy after the battle, that I had
to turn on my face and cry secretly, he hurt me so.

One day--a very sunshiny day, I remember, the sky above our neighbour's
roof was a bright blue--we were holding a lively representation of a
circus we had visited the day before. Willy, with the carriage whip
brought up from the hall, took the place of the gentleman in the ring,
while I as the piebald palfrey galloped on all fours spiritedly round
the place, or pranced proudly on my hind legs, to command. We were
spurred on to more vivacious action by the knowledge that our neighbour
had opened his window wide, and was standing before it. When we tired
of our equestrian performances, and took up our position opposite him,
he, for the first time, nodded and smiled at us, and presently motioned
to us to throw up our window likewise.

Proud and pleased at this mark of attention, we speedily tore down the
screen, and, both of us going to work together in our eagerness, flung
the window wide.

"Nothing like being friendly with your neighbours," the young man said.
"You seem pretty lively across there--how d