is long and long ago. He was killed at sea (Dear Heaven rest his blessed
head!) when I was twenty-five. I have all my life, since ever I can
remember, been deeply fond of children. I have always felt such a love
for them, that I have had my sorrowful and sinful times when I have
fancied something must have gone wrong in my life--something must have
been turned aside from its original intention I mean--or I should have
been the proud and happy mother of many children, and a fond old
grandmother this day. I have soon known better in the cheerfulness and
contentment that God has blessed me with and given me abundant reason
for; and yet I have had to dry my eyes even then, when I have thought of
my dear, brave, hopeful, handsome, bright-eyed Charley, and the trust
meant to cheer me with. Charley was my youngest brother, and he went to
India. He married there, and sent his gentle little wife home to me to
be confined, and she was to go back to him, and the baby was to be left
with me, and I was to bring it up. It never belonged to this life. It
took its silent place among the other incidents in my story that might
have been, but never were. I had hardly time to whisper to her "Dead my
own!" or she to answer, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust! O lay it on my
breast and comfort Charley!" when she had gone to seek her baby at Our
Saviour's feet. I went to Charley, and I told him there was nothing left
but me, poor me; and I lived with Charley, out there, several years. He
was a man of fifty, when he fell asleep in my arms. His face had changed
to be almost old and a little stern; but, it softened, and softened when
I laid it down that I might cry and pray beside it; and, when I looked at
it for the last time, it was my dear, untroubled, handsome, youthful
Charley of long ago.

--I was going on to tell that the loneliness of the House to Let brought
back all these recollections, and that they had quite pierced my heart
one evening, when Flobbins, opening the door, and looking very much as if