already I
had mounted my spectacles. A portrait-painter's sky (the most sombre and
threatening of welkins), and distant trees of a conventional depth of
hue, raised in full relief a pale, pensive-looking female face, shadowed
with soft dark hair, almost blending with the equally dark clouds;
large, solemn eyes looked reflectively into mine; a thin cheek rested
on a delicate little hand; a shawl, artistically draped, half hid, half
showed a slight figure. A listener (had there been one) might have heard
me, after ten minutes' silent gazing, utter the word "Mother!" I might
have said more--but with me, the first word uttered aloud in soliloquy
rouses consciousness; it reminds me that only crazy people talk to
themselves, and then I think out my monologue, instead of speaking it.
I had thought a long while, and a long while had contemplated the
intelligence, the sweetness, and--alas! the sadness also of those fine,
grey eyes, the mental power of that forehead, and the rare sensibility
of that serious mouth, when my glance, travelling downwards, fell on a
narrow billet, stuck in the corner of the picture, between the frame and
the canvas. Then I first asked, "Who sent this picture? Who thought of
me, saved it out of the wreck of Crimsworth Hall, and now commits it to
the care of its natural keeper?" I took the note from its niche; thus it
spoke:--

"There is a sort of stupid pleasure in giving a child sweets, a fool his
bells, a dog a bone. You are repaid by seeing the child besmear his face
with sugar; by witnessing how the fool's ecstasy makes a greater fool of
him than ever; by watching the dog's nature come out over his bone.
In giving William Crimsworth his mother's picture, I give him sweets,
bells, and bone all in one; what grieves me is, that I cannot behold
the result; I would have added five shillings more to my bid if the
auctioneer could only have promised me that pleasure.

"H. Y. H.

"P.S.--You said last night you positively declined adding another item
to your account with me; don't you think I've saved you that trouble?"

I muffled the picture in its green baize covering, restored it to the
case, and having transported the whole concern to my bed-room, put it
out of sight under my bed. My pleasure was now poisoned by pungent pain;
I determined to look no more till I could look at my ease. If Hunsden
had come in at that moment, I should have said to him, "I owe you
nothing, Hunsden--not a fraction of a fa