d
there opened a drawer containing some old jewelry; there were also
some queer Chinese carvings, yellow with age,--just the things a child
would enjoy. I looked at them delightedly. This was coming back to
more familiar life; and I soon felt more at ease, and chattered to
Lady Ferry of my own possessions, and some coveted treasures of my
mother's, which were to be mine when I grew older.

Madam stood beside me patiently, and listened with a half smile to my
whispered admiration. In the clearer light I could see her better, and
she seemed older,--so old, so old! and my father's words came to me
again. She had not changed since he was a boy; living on and on, and
the 'horror of an endless life in this world!' And I remembered what
Martha had said to me, and the consciousness of this mystery was a
great weight upon me of a sudden. Why was she living so long? and what
had happened to her? and how long could it be since she was a child?

There was something in her manner which made me behave, even in my
pleasure, as if her imagined funeral were there in reality, and as if,
in spite of my being amused and tearless, the solemn company of
funeral guests already sat in the next room to us with bowed heads,
and all the shadows in the world had assembled there materialized into
the tangible form of crape. I opened and closed the boxes gently, and,
when I had seen every thing, I looked up with a sigh to think that
such a pleasure was ended, and asked if I might see them again some
day. But the look in her face made me recollect myself, and my own
grew crimson, for it seemed at that moment as real to me as to Lady
Ferry herself that this was her last day of mortal life. She walked
away, but presently came back, while I was wondering if I might not
go, and opened the drawer again. It creaked, and the brass handles
clacked in a startling way, and she took out a little case, and said I
might keep it to remember her by. It held a little vinaigrette,--a
tiny silver box with a gold one inside, in which I found a bit of fine
sponge, dark brown with age, and still giving a faint, musty perfume
and spiciness. The outside was rudely chased, and was worn as if it
had been carried for years in somebody's pocket. It had a spring, the
secret of which Lady Ferry showed me. I was delighted, and
instinctively lifted my face to kiss her. She bent over me, and waited
an instant for me to kiss her again. "Oh!" said she softly, "it is so
long since a