we three--the Doctor, and Elsie, and I--could have lain down in a row,
in the old graveyard, close under the eaves of the house, and let the
grass grow over us. The world is cold; and I am an alms-house child."

The house by the graveyard seemed dismal now, no doubt, to little
Elsie, who, being of a cheerful nature herself, (common natures often
having this delusion about a home,) had grown up with the idea that it
was the most delightful spot in the world; the place fullest of
pleasant play, and of household love (because her own love welled over
out of her heart, like a spring in a barrel); the place where everybody
was kind and good, the world beyond its threshold appearing perhaps
strange and sombre; the spot where it was pleasantest to be, for its
own mere sake; the dim old, homely place, so warm and cosey in winter,
so cool in summer. Who else was fortunate enough to have such a home,--
with that nice, kind, beautiful Ned, and that dear, kind, gentle, old
Doctor Grim, with his sweet ways, so wise, so upright, so good, beyond
all other men? O, happy girl that she was, to have grown up in such a
home! Was there ever any other house with such cosey nooks in it? Such
probably were the feelings of good little Elsie about this place, which
has seemed to us so dismal; for the home feeling in the child's heart,
her warm, cheerful, affectionate nature, was a magic, so far as she
herself was concerned, and made all the house and its inmates over
after her own fashion. But now that little Ned was gone, there came a
change. She moped about the house, and, for the first time, suspected
it was dismal.

As for the grim Doctor, there did not appear to be much alteration in
that hard old character; perhaps he drank a little more, though that
was doubtful, because it is difficult to see where he could find niches
to stick in more frequent drinks. Nor did he more frequently breathe