sleep again in the fifteenth century with the voice of old Agnes Paston
sounding in my ears. Dead half a thousand years, yet across the gulf of
time I hear the painful scratching of her quill as she sends "Goddis
blyssyng" to her son in London, and tells him all her motherly gossip and
makes the rough life of far-off Tudor England live for ever. Dear old
Agnes! She little thought as she struggled with her spelling and her pen
that she was writing something that was immortal. If she had known, I don't
think she would have bothered. She was a very matter-of-fact old lady, and
was too full of worries to have much room for vanities.

I should like to say more about my bedside friends--strapping George Borrow
sitting with Petulengro's sister under the hedge or fighting the Flaming
Tinman; the dear little Boston doctor who talks so chirpily over the
Breakfast Table; the _Compleat Angler_ that takes you out into an eternal
May morning, and Sainte-Beuve whom I have found a first-rate bedside
talker. But I must close.

There is one word, however, to be added. Your bedside friends should be
dressed in soft leather and printed on thin paper. Then you can talk to
them quite snugly. It is a great nuisance if you have to stick your arms
out of bed and hold your hands rigid.




ON CATS AND DOGS


A friend of mine calling to see me the other day and observing my faithful
Airedale--"Quilp" by name--whose tail was in a state of violent emotion at