as lonely as a human habitation long deserted; the cupboard,
through the open doors of which you may see the rose-bedecked cups
that were specially bought for the nursery tea. Am I the same woman
that used to rustle so cheerfully down the nursery corridor to share
that happy afternoon tea? From the door, half denuded of its paint,
peachy little faces used to peep joyfully at my coming; while inside
there waited my little delicate one, long gone to God, who never ran
and played with the others. I can see her still, with the pleasure
lighting up her little, thin face, where she sat sedately, her scarlet
shoes to the blaze and her doll clasped to a tenderly maternal
breast.

They will tear down the wall paper to-morrow, and the pictures of
Beauty and the Beast, and those fine-coloured prints of children and
doggies and beribboned pussy-cats that the children used to love.
There is one of a terrier submitting meekly to be washed by an
imperious small mistress. One of my babies loved that terrier so
tenderly that he had to be lifted morning and night to kiss the black
nose, whence the oily shine of the picture is much disfigured at that
point. He is grown now and a good boy, but less fond of kissing, and
somehow independent of his father and of me. There on the window
shutter is a drawing my baby, Nella, made the year she died, a strange
and wonderful representation of a lady and a dog. I have never allowed
it to be washed out, and perhaps only mothers will understand me when
I say that I have kissed it often with tears.

I shall miss my nurseries bitterly. No one ever came there but myself
in those quiet afternoon hours, and my old Mary, my nurse, who nursed
them all from first to last. She surprised me once as I sat strangling
with sobs amid the toys I had lifted from their shelves, the
dilapidated sheep, the Noah's Ark, the engine, which for want of a
wheel lies on its side, and a whole disreputable regiment of battered
dolls and tin soldiers. On my lap there were dainty garments of linen
and wool, every one of which I kissed so often with a passion of
regret. I have kept my baby clothes selfishly till now, hidden away in
locked drawers, sweet with lavender. To-day I have parted with them.
They are gone to dress the Christmas babies at a great maternity
hospital. Each one I set aside to go tore my heart intolerably. May
the Christmas Babe who lacked such clothing in the frost and snow,
love the little ones, living or de