pattered down, with my face set to express the sudden desire of a
sensitive and possibly short-lived child for parents' love. My mother
pretended to be angry, but that I knew was only her company manners.
Besides, I really had, if not exactly a pain, an extremely
uncomfortable sensation (one common to me about that period) as of
having swallowed the dome of St. Paul's. The doctor said it was a
frequent complaint with children, the result of too early hours and
too much study; and, taking me on his knee, wrote then and there a
diet chart for me, which included one tablespoonful of golden syrup
four times a day, and one ounce of sherbet to be placed upon the
tongue and taken neat ten minutes before each meal.

That evening will always live in my remembrance. My mother was
brighter than I had ever seen her. A flush was on her cheek and a
sparkle in her eye, and looking across at her as she sat holding a
small painted screen to shield her face from the fire, the sense of
beauty became suddenly born within me, and answering an impulse I
could not have explained, I slipped down, still with my blanket around
me, from the doctor's knee, and squatted on the edge of the fender,
from where, when I thought no one was noticing me, I could steal
furtive glances up into her face.

So also my father seemed to me to have become all at once bigger and
more dignified, talking with a vigour and an enjoyment that sat newly
on him. Aunt Fan was quite witty and agreeable--for her; and even I
asked one or two questions, at which, for some reason or another,
everybody laughed; which determined me to remember and ask those same
questions again on some future occasion.

That was the great charm of the man, that by the magnetic spell of his