And the world of wars and sorrows was about me once again.

C.F.S.

* * * * *

REMEMBRANCE.

"Stop, Francesca," I cried. "Don't talk; don't budge; don't blink.
Give me time. I've all but--"

"What _are_ you up to?" she said.

"There," I said, "you've done it. I had it on the tip of my tongue,
and now it has gone back for ever into the limbo of forgotten things,
and all because you couldn't keep silent for the least little fraction
of a second."

"My poor dear," she said, "I _am_ sorry. But why didn't you tell me
you were trying to remember something?"

"That," I said, "would have been just as fatal to it. These things are
only remembered in an atmosphere of perfect silence. The mental effort
must have room to develop."

"Don't tell me," she said tragically, "that I have checked the
development of a mental effort. That would be too awful."

"Well," I said, "that's exactly what you _have_ done, that and nothing
less. I feel just as if I'd tried to go upstairs where there wasn't a