peel off the walls. The garden and lawn, too,
were lovely shady places; but I suppose they,
too, may have been somewhat overgrown, for
the flowers never throve there, and the grass was
nearly always soppy, and the walks wet and
moss-grown.

Whether this had anything to do with it or
not—sometimes I fear it may have had, though
I feel as if it were treason against the dear old
place to say so—we certainly were not a healthy
family, nor yet a long-lived one.

My father farmed his land himself; it gave
him something to do, he said, and, indeed, if he
had not had that, I don't think he would have
done anything. I suppose he could not have
been called an energetic man; but he was a kind
man as ever was, dear father! and never teased
or troubled any one about him, but let things
take their course. He did not make much of the
farming, but as we had enough to live upon
comfortably, it did not so much signify. The land
was wet and heavy, and wanted such a lot of
draining, and the hedges and banks were so
thick and high, they took up a deal of space and
kept the air and sunshine off the fields. We
did not think of those things then in our part of
the country, and it's only since I have lived
where I do now that I've learnt them. There
was generally something the matter with the
sheep or the cattle, or the potatoes got the
disease, or the hay heated, or the rats got so
ahead that they ate up half the corn, and the
young ducks and chickens too. Farming—at
all events it was so with us—is, I do think, a
very unsatisfactory sort of thing; though I took
great pleasure in it myself in those days, in the
poultry-yard especially, and in rearing the calves,
only they would die so often.

However, as I have said, my dear father never
took these things much to heart. So long as he
could saunter about, seeing to things, and get a
day's shooting now and again, and have his nap
after dinner, all went smoothly with him.

My mother was just as easy-going as my
father. A pretty, fair woman, I remember her,
always delicate, and going about the house, or
sitting on her sofa with a shawl; a sweet-looking
creature, gentle and placid, but with a great
dislike to trouble of any kind, or being put out
of her way. She seldom left the house, summer or
winter, and year by year she got paler and more
fragile, and by degrees the little cough I always
remember her having, got worse, and used to
disturb her at night. The few visitors we saw
used to advise her seeing a doctor. But she
always replied it was nothing, she would be
better when the spring came, or the summer, or
whatever the next season might be that was
coming. They told her they did not think the place
agreed with her; it was so damp; but she only
smiled, and said, quietly, "Do you think so?"
and thought no more about it. We children,
too, throve no better than the beasts on the
farm; and yet I don't think there was any
hereditary disease in the family; I never heard
of any, at all events. But we grew up slight
and pale, and weedy, and were always having
colds, and sore-throats, and croup. The quantity
of mustard that was used in plasters was enough,
and more than enough, I'm sure, to have served
with all the pigs and oxen we ever reared, and
as to the currant jelly, there was no end of it.

Then there came a hard winter. Oh well I
remember it!

My sister Janey, sweet little blue-eyed thing,
the image of mamma, got a terrible cough and
pain in her chest, and the usual mustard plaster
and currant-jelly water did no good. She got
worse and worse, now shivering, now glowing
with fever, and at last mamma thought that
maybe it would be better to send for a doctor.
But when the doctor came, it was too late.
She had inflammation of the lungs, and died
next day. The doctor said it was very unwise
to let us go as we did all the year round, with
bare arms and necks and legs, running in and
out of the house. But we had always done so,
and mamma thought that nonsense; it made
children hardy, she said, so no change was made.
But by-and-by Roger, the stoutest of us, was
taken ill, much in the same way, and before the
New Year he went too, and was laid beside
Janey. Then mother grew weaker and weaker,
and coughed awfully, and could neither sleep nor
eat. Ah me, ah me! it breaks my heart to
think of that time.

In a word, she was in a consumption before
anybody in the house thought there was
anything serious the matter. She lingered through
the spring and summer, and in the autumn she
died. It took my father by surprise, just as
much as if her death were sudden. He could
not and would not believe he was to lose her.
He did what I have since noticed so many
people do, watching over the sick-beds of those
they love too well to own they must learn to do
without them. He took notice of every little
favourable symptom, and overlooked every alarming
one; he never would go back to remember
how much weaker she was than she had been
three months ago. If she had a better night, or
ate with any appetite, or seemed interested in
anything, that, he considered, showed a real
improvement, while the many bad nights, and the
habitual dislike to food and the sad weary
listlessness, were mere accidental and passing states.
He never recovered the shock of her death; he
became a silent, worn, broken-down man, and
died two years later.

Within the next seven years Lena and Charlie
followed, and there were Willie and I left alone
in the old house, without a near relation, or, I
may say, an intimate friend in the world.

You may guess if I loved Willie! He was
two years younger than I was, and even while
the others lived, we two had been dearest of all
to each other. Oh, the sweet boy he was! with
his soft eyes, and delicate skin, and fine hair,
like a child's, always. He was tall and slender,
such a willowy figure, and his hands white and
transparent, like mamma's. I used to tremble all
over if I heard him cough, and often I would
wake up in the night, shivering from some
horrible dream of his being ill, and going, like