It interested me to get these half side-lights on my father's
character. Knowing nothing of him, as I did, save the solitary fact
that he was the white-haired gentleman I saw dead in my Picture, I
naturally wanted to learn as much as I could from this old servant
of ours as to the family conditions.

"Then you thought him harsh, in the servants'-hall?" I said
tentatively to Jane. "You thought him hard and unbending?"

"Well, there, Miss," Jane ran on, putting a cushion to my back
tenderly--it was strange to be the recipient of so much delicate
attention from a perfect stranger,--"not exactly what you'd call
harsh to us ourselves, you know: he was a good master enough, as
long as one did what was ordered, though he was a little bit
fidgetty. But to you, we all thought he was always rather hard.
People said so in Woodbury. And yet, in a way, I don't know how it
was, he always seemed more'n half afraid of you. He was careful
about your health, and spoiled and petted you for that; yet he was
always pulling you up, you know, and looking after what you did: and
for one thing, I remember, there's many a time you were sent to bed
when you were a good big girl for nothing on earth else but because
he heard you talking to us in the hall about Australia."

"Talking to you about Australia!" I cried, pricking my ears. "Why,
what harm was there in that? Why on earth didn't he want me to talk
about Australia?"

"Ah! what harm indeed?" Jane echoed blandly. "That's what we often
used to say among ourselves downstairs. But Mr. Callingham, he was