cted with different parts of it, began to rise on my memory in the
strangest and most startling independence of any influence or control,
which my present agitation and suspense might be supposed to exercise
over them. The remembrances that should have been the last to be
awakened at this time of heavy trial, were the very remembrances which
now moved within me.

With burdened heart and aching eyes I looked over the walls around me.
There, in that corner, was the red cloth door which led to the library.
As children, how often Ralph and I had peeped curiously through that
very door, to see what my father was about in his study, to wonder
why he had so many letters to write, and so many books to read. How
frightened we both were, when he discovered us one day, and reproved
us severely! How happy the moment afterwards, when we had begged him
to pardon us, and were sent back to the library again with a great
picture-book to look at, as a token that we were both forgiven! Then,
again, there was the high, old-fashioned, mahogany press before the
window, with the same large illustrated folio about Jewish antiquities
lying on it, which, years and years ago, Clara and I were sometimes
allowed to look at, as a special treat, on Sunday afternoons; and which
we always examined and re-examined with never-ending delight--standing
together on two chairs to reach up to the thick, yellow-looking leaves,
and turn them over with our own hands. And there, in the recess between
two bookcases, still stood the ancient desk-table, with its rows of
little inlaid drawers; and on the bracket above it the old French clock,
which had once belonged to my mother, and which always chimed the hours
so sweetly and merrily. It was at that table that Ralph and I always
bade my father farewell, when we were going back to school after the
holidays, and were receiving our allowance of pocket-money, given to us
out of one of the tiny inlaid drawers, just before we started. Near that
spot, too, Clara--then a little rosy child--used to wait gravely and
anxiously, with her doll in her arms, to say good-bye for the last time,
and to bid us come back soon, and then never go away again. I turned,
and looked abruptly towards the window; for such memories as the room
suggested were more than I could bear.

Outside, in the dreary strip of garden, the few stunted, dusky trees
were now rustling as pleasantly in the air, as if the breeze that
stirred them came serenely