but in the summer-time some flowers grew about the sun-dial in the grass
plat. This house was called the Hall, and Squire Carson lived there. One
Christmas--it must have been the Christmas before my father emigrated,
or I should not remember it--we children went to a Christmas-tree
festivity at the Hall. There was a great party there, and footmen
wearing red waistcoats stood at the door. In the dining-room, which was
panelled with black oak, was the Christmas-tree. Squire Carson stood in
front of it. He was a tall, dark man, very quiet in his manners, and he
wore a bunch of seals on his waistcoat. We used to think him old, but
as a matter of fact he was then not more than forty. He had been, as
I afterwards learned, a great traveller in his youth, and some six
or seven years before this date he married a lady who was half a
Spaniard--a papist, my father called her. I can remember her well. She
was small and very pretty, with a rounded figure, large black eyes, and
glittering teeth. She spoke English with a curious accent. I suppose
that I must have been a funny child to look at, and I know that my hair
stood up on my head then as it does now, for I still have a sketch of
myself that my mother made of me, in which this peculiarity is strongly
marked. On this occasion of the Christmas-tree I remember that Mrs.
Carson turned to a tall, foreign-looking gentleman who stood beside
her, and, tapping him affectionately on the shoulder with her gold
eye-glasses, said--

"Look, cousin--look at that droll little boy with the big brown eyes;
his hair is like a--what you call him?--scrubbing-brush. Oh, what a
droll little boy!"

The tall gentleman pulled at his moustache, and, taking Mrs. Carson's
hand in his, began to smooth my hair down with it till I heard her
whisper--