wafted past our windows in the summer evenings. We had a large garden at
the back, and a stable up the lane; and though the house was but one
story in height, it covered a considerable space of ground, and
contained more rooms than we ever had occasion to use. Thus it happened
that since my mother's death, which took place when I was a very little
boy, many doors on the upper floor were kept locked, to the undue
development of my natural inquisitiveness by day, and my mortal terror
when sent to bed at night. In one of these her portrait still hung above
the mantelpiece, and her harp stood in its accustomed corner. In
another, which was once her bedroom, everything was left as in her
lifetime, her clothes yet hanging in the wardrobe, her dressing-case
standing upon the toilet, her favorite book upon the table beside the
bed. These things, told to me by the servants with much mystery, took a
powerful hold upon my childish imagination. I trembled as I passed the
closed doors at dusk, and listened fearfully outside when daylight gave
me courage to linger near them. Something of my mother's presence, I
fancied, must yet dwell within--something in her shape still wander from
room to room in the dim moonlight, and echo back the sighing of the
night winds. Alas! I could not remember her. Now and then, as if
recalled by a dream, some broken and shadowy images of a pale face and a
slender hand floated vaguely through my mind; but faded even as I strove
to realize them. Sometimes, too, when I was falling off to sleep in my
little bed, or making out pictures in the fire on a winter evening,
strange fragments of old rhymes seemed to come back upon me, mingled
with the tones of a soft voice and the haunting of a long-forgotten
melody. But these, after all, were yearnings more of the heart than
the memory:--

"I felt a mother-want about the world.
And still went seeking."