my shells in order, and found that the labels of
four specimens of Patella vulguta bad come
unglued.

"Mem.: To fasten them on more carefully.

"Quartette evening at Shawe's. Haydn's
Q. in G. Bow-hand weak. Tried an adagio
from Beethoven's Rasoumoffsky set. Head too
confused to count time. All gave it up, and
went back to Corelli.

"Mem.: To look up signs of predisposition
to Hydatids in brain in Carver's book. Came
home late, Rain. Fear I took cold. Bella
still up, making white wine whey."

Here, in the margin, in red ink:

"Four grains rhubarb, two pills, lotion for
knee. Very little good from either."

Turning over the leaf, the eyes profane aforesaid
might trace on the chronicle as follows:

"Friday, 7th. Knee a little relieved, but same
queer feeling about left elbow. Never heard of
white swelling there.

"Mem.: Not to forget Carver. Never can
be too sure. Broiled kidney for breakfast.
Throat a little husky, as on Monday. Heard
last night of old woman dying of quinsy
somewhere near. Must be careful of cold.
Additional flannel waistcoat.

"Put off going out with rod till next week.
Received sixth volume of Sowerby. Strange
that they should always come on a Friday.

"Transit of Jupiter. Cloudy. Could make
out nothing. Think something is amiss with
lens.

"Mem.: Write to Dollond's about it.

"Rain again. Chilly. Bella walked into
town to see .about my linsey-woolsey socks.

"Mem.-. To ask "Dr. Fayle if any cases of
ague in neighbourhood. Tried to finish copying
outlines of Pholas dactylus in pencil from
Montagu's Testacea Brit., but hand shook sadly, and
suffered from drowsiness. Forced to leave off.
To bed early.

"Mem.: To look into Carver for lethargy."

And in the margin of the page again the red
ink rubric:

"Nervous mixture twice. Port wine gargle.
Additional blanket."

So passed away more years. Godpapa Vance
spent them partly in small flirtations with the
sciences, partly in those mild Corelli-loving
quartette parties, or in unobtrusive quaverings
at a select glee club in the town, and partly in
fishing excursions along the surrounding trout-
streams, in the service of which new hobby he
laid in expensive fishing-tackle, enough to furnish
the anglers of three counties with rod and line
for a lifetime, and invariably returned from his
piscatory pilgrimages with a cargo of new
diseases, and a list of new symptoms and
surmises wherewith to try the tenderness and
temper of dear Aunt Bella.

A short time before I was born, when my
father, having just gained his post-captaincy
and lost an arm in action, retired from the navy
on half-pay, and settled at South Cove, Captain
Vance began to find out that his midland home
was, after all, too damp for him, and so broke
up his establishment, sold his library, and one-
half of his mahogany cases, and set up his rest
close beside his old messmate, in the house
where I knew him, and which he and Aunt
Bella inhabited thenceforward as long as they
lived.

Number three, Meadow-row! There it stands
again, that long-demolished palace of delights
of my childhood—of delights not without their
spice of awe aud heart-quaking—for Godpapa
Vance was a tremendous personage in my eyes,
and his tiny study an arsenal of fearful wonders,
whose learned perfume somehow seemed
to ooze out through its listed door (always
locked except when he was sitting within), and
pervade the whole side of the house on which it
opened. A little, pale, drab-coloured house it
was, which, like its neighbours, was built
against the slope of a hill. They had a road in
front of them, and each had its little railed
square garden, like an old-fashioned flowered
handkerchief spread out on the further side of
the road. Beyond and between the blossoming
shrubs which hedged these gardens were seen
fragments of roofs and chimney-pots, for the
street (so called by courtesy) which led into the
Cove was on a much lower level than Meadow-row,
and kept its ugliness, as much as a street
could do, perdu behind the lilacs and mezereons,
while the beautiful blue sea flashed and
trembled in the sunshine away to the left in an
undulating emerald goblet of hills, with a few
tall spiky masts rising up from their anchorage
into the sky, and right in front, beyond the
huddled buildings of the little town, stood out,
rough with fir-trees and grey limestone blocks,
the sturdy height we used to call Stony Point,
on whose venerable flank some narrow flights
of moss-grown and broken steps went meandering
up to a beautiful wood path far above
the sea, and were fully visible from Meadow-row.

Outside, it was a meek little Quakerish house,
consisting of ground floor and first floor only,
with four windows in front, each having an
arched cornice above it like a surprised
eyebrow, and an unsophisticated street door,
framed in a little arched recess, which seemed
a rudimentary porch, and up which a luxuriant,
white jessamine was carefully trained. There
was a narrow lane, with a high garden wall,
which separated the house on one side from its
fellows, and ended in a steep, awkward, rugged
flight of steps (South Cove was rife in such
steps then), leading to the brow of the hill. A
prim little kitchen door, and two more up-stairs
windows, opened on this lane, and all round
the basement story, raised a foot or two above
the level of the road, was a narrow-railed
flower-border, with tufted edgings of delicate
white campanulas and London-pride, enclosing
knots of white and tiger lilies, and bushes of
the finest and most luscious cabbage-roses I
ever saw or smelt.

Inside, a tiny hall led to the foot of a tiny
staircase. On the left, was the dining-room
(eating-room Aunt Bella always called it),