weather. She gave no reason for this watch, but a kindly and reverent
reserve protected her from questions. It was felt that the place was
sacred to some recollection of her youth, when her young children were
about her, before the cruel desertion of two, the ceaseless quarrels of
other two, and the tragic death of one of them, had darkened her days.

The one door in the wall being fastened, and the ground-floor at that
end of the house having none but barred windows, it follows that the
only entrance to the garden was now from this gallery. There was,
indeed, a flight of steps leading down from it, but there was a gate at
the top of them, and this gate was locked.

On the day of her eldest son's funeral, his stricken mother had locked
it. Perhaps she scarcely knew at first that the time would never come
when she should find courage again to open it; but she took away the key
to satisfy some present distressful fancy, and those about her respected
her desire that the place should not be entered. They did not doubt that
there was some pathetic reason for this desire, but none was evident,
for her son had gone down to his death in a secluded and now all but
inaccessible part of the glen, where, turning from its first direction,
it sunk deeper still, and was divided by red rocks from its more shallow
opening.

A useless watch at best was hers, still of the terrace, and the arbour,
and the bed of lilies; but as she got yet deeper down into the vale of
years, those about her sometimes hoped that she had forgotten the
sorrowful reason, whatever it might be, that drew her eyes incessantly
towards them. She began even to express a kind of pleasure in the
gradual encroachments of the lovely plants. Once she had said, "It is my
hope, when I am gone, as none of you will ever disturb them."

Whatever visions of a happy youth, whatever mournful recollections of
the sports of her own children, might belong to them, those now with her
knew not of them, but they thought that her long and pathetic watch had
at last become more a habit with her than any conscious recalling of the
past, and they hoped it might be so.

The one sitting-room used by the family opened into the gallery, and was
a good deal darkened by its roof. On one side of it was Peter's nursery,
on the other his great-grandmother's chamber, and no other part of the
house was open excepting some kitchen offices, and two or three bedrooms
in the roof. The servants cons