, there lay before me as fine a
field as any craftsman in the art of fiction ever had a chance to glean
in. It is an impertinence for a man to speak of his own work, but I have
often thought in my own story of _Aunt Rachel_, there is at least an
adumbration of what a man aimed with real sympathy and humour might
have done with the people of that place and time. When I say that the
characters in _Aunt Rachel_ are all real, I do not mean to make the
foolish boast that they are all alive. I mean simply to say that they
are all sketches from the life and are as true to their own lineaments
as my hand could make them. The old musical enthusiast who, having heard
Paganini, laid down his bow for ever because he could be content with
nothing less than the great virtuoso's perfections, was a maternal
great-uncle of mine, and the pathetic little story of the manner in
which the life-long severance between himself and his sweetheart was
brought about is literally true. "Aunt Rachel" herself in her extremely
starched and dignified old age was a constant visitor at my mother's
house. She had, for a space of something like forty years, had charge
of successive generations of children in a stately country house in
Worcestershire, and when she was honourably pensioned and retired, she
used to boast, in her prim way, that she was not unacquainted with the
airs and graces of the higher powers. She must at least have reached the
age of fourscore when on one occasion she had lingered at my mother's
house until darkness fell. The cottage she lived in was a mile away and
was approached by a somewhat lonely road. My brother Tom, at that time a
stalwart lad of eighteen, was suggested to her as an escort. The little
old lady drew herself up to the full height of her dignity. It was a
saying of hers that she could not by any loyal person be described as
a female of inferior stature, since she was but one barleycorn less in
height than Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria. She rebuked my
mother with a solemnity which laid a heavy tax on our politeness. "No,
Mary, my dear," she said, "I will go alone; I have my reputation to
consider."

One meets rarely at this time the example of the attached old school of
servants, who used to identify themselves with the household to which
they ministered. The faithful servant of the antique world is dead,
but I remember dozens of instances in my childhood where even in
establishments as humble as our own,