they were
nevertheless very reassuring to me, very familiar and very much beloved:
they were the forms of mother, grandmother and aunts. Then I would run
to them hastily and throw myself upon their laps, and that was always
one of the happiest moments of my day.

CHAPTER IX.

In the month of March, as the shadows of twilight gathered, two little
children were seated very close together upon a low footstool--two
little ones, between the ages of five and six, dressed in short trousers
with white pinafores over them, as was the fashion of the time. After
having played wildly they were now quietly amusing themselves with paper
and pencils. The dim light seemed to fill them with a vague fear, and it
troubled their spirits.

Of the two children only one was drawing--it was I. The other, a friend
invited over for the day, an exceptional thing, was watching me with
great attention. With some difficulty (trusting me meantime) he followed
the fantastic movements of my pencil whose intention I took care to
explain to him at some length. And my oral interpretation was necessary,
for I was busy executing two drawings that I entitled respectively, "The
Happy Duck" and "The Unhappy Duck."

The room in which we were seated must have been furnished about the year
1805, at the time of the marriage of my now-very-old grandmother, who
still occupied it, and who this evening was seated in the chair of the
Directory period; she was singing to herself and she took no notice of
us.

My memories of my grandmother are indistinct for her death occurred
shortly after this time; but as I will never again, in the course of
this recital, have a more vivid impression of her, I will here insert
what I know of her history.

It seems that in the stress of all sorts of troubles she had been a
brave and noble mother. After reverses that were so general in those
days, after losing her husband at the Battle of Trafalgar, and her
elder son at the shipwreck of the Medusa, she went resolutely to work to
educate her younger son, my father, until such time as he should be
able to support himself. At about her eightieth year (which was not far
distant when I came into the world) the senility of second childhood
had set in; at that time I knew nothing about the tragedy of the loss of
memory and I could not realize the vacancy of her mind and soul.

She would often stand for a long time before a mirror and talk in a most
amiable way to her own ref