A comely, dark little woman, with a low forehead and sharp, black eyes, I can see my mother now, rocking my sister Alice in the wooden cradle, very much like the show cradles you see in old halls; for what was only good enough for common sort of people forty years ago, was good enough for princes in the old days. Our ancestral mothers never dreamed of anything so handsome and soft and silken and lace-bedecked as the modern cot which you encounter now and then in Dives' drawing-room, when Mrs. Dives is inclined to be particularly domesticated for ten minutes, and wishes to show her darling to an especial friend. It was a good old-fashioned cradle, that in which I was rocked, and in my manhood Dame Fortune has not favoured me with any particularly soft rugs or cushions. But I am none the worse for that physically; indeed, I think I am all the better, seeing how sickly and white and weak certain swells are who have been lying on swans' down all their lives, and watching every change of wind, that they might not be surprised with clothing too thick or too thin for the weather.

Depend upon it there is nothing like hard fare to make a man strong and active and wise, nothing like a career of hardship and trial, a perpetual fight with adverse circumstances, and his own way to make in the world as I had; though, mind you, I should be sorry for a son of mine to be launched upon the great tide of life compassless and rudderless as I was; for you can readily judge that my mother was not the sort of woman to fortify her son with moral armour, and as for my father-well, he had enough to do to keep the pot boiling, as he used to say, without bothering his head about the future so much. But if you would make a man of your son, send him out into the world early; let him rely upon his own resources; help him judiciously when he is in trouble, and cheer him on when he deserves it. I had all the first advantages of this forcing system, and none of the latter; so you will the more easily understand my difficulties, and forgive my shortcomings.

But to go back to that conversation with my mother. I remember that we were just discussing the point about our material wealth, and I was wondering whether there were really any good fairies who visited people and gave them sundry wishes, when the door was suddenly opened, and in rolled a hat.

"Ah, there he is again," said my mother; "twice this fortnight." "Whoever shall this hat displace, must meet Bombastes face to face,'" said a tipsy voice in the door-way, and in due course there entered my respected father, smiling cheerfully, and in dumb show inviting sundry opponents to come on and displace that said hat,

which rolled playfully up to the fireplace, and there lay covered with the firelight. My little sister Alice woke up and cried lustily, my mother took the child again to her arms, my father tried to kiss the twain, in a mock show of affection, my mother angrily repulsed him, and I shrank away behind the sofa, half afraid, half amused.

"Won't you speak, my petsy-wetsy?-won't um speak to um's hubby-bubby?" said my father, and then he spied me, and was evidently ashamed of this undignified parental exhibition in my presence.

"Why is not Georgy in bed ?" he said, the smile leaving his face. "Because he is not," said my mother, sharply. "Left hours and hours by myself like this, I may surely have the companionship of my own child?"

"Hours and hours; what do you mean by hours and hours?" asked my father.

"What do I mean? You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"

"So he is, so he is," said a gentleman whom I had never seen before, stepping in at the half open door-way; for it was not yet ten o'clock; "but it was my fault this time. The truth is, he has been dining with me, we have been settling some important business, and the wine excited him. I walked home with him, and should have come in, but I was startled by his sudden bit of theatrical business."

"Come in now, then," said my father. "Sit down, and don't apologise for me. How I came home is my affair, sir, not yours." He was quite a gentleman, this stranger to me; for that matter, my father was a gentleman, but he was not dressed so well as his companion, nor was there such a tone of authority in his voice. My mother moved quite courteously to the gentleman, and my father offered him a chair.

"Georgy," said my father, putting his hand gently on my shoulder. "Yes, father," I said, looking up at him.

"Go to bed."

"Yes, father," I said, hurrying to the staircase. father."

"Good night,

"Good night;" and then all of a sudden my father's voice changed, as if he was going to weep, when he said again, "good night, my boy."

My mother followed me upstairs, but she did not come into my little room. The single domestic who sometimes undressed me and heard me say my prayers, never came near me, and hurrying off my things, I crept into bed, hid my face in the pillow, and felt-oh! so

wretched, so very miserable, and I knew not why. The moon, shining in at one corner of the window, sent a pale ray of light across the room, falling upon a chest of drawers, and mounting upwards in a long column, like a ghost. I could hear the murmur of voices in the room below, and my mother hushing Alice to sleep in the next room. I thought all about that journey in the coach, and my grandfather and his waggon, wondered what Southtown was like, and if I should ever see it, prayed for my father and mother and little Alice, drew the sheets more tightly round me as that column of moonlight gradually moved along the wall nearer the bed, and at last fell asleep and dreamed of some strange land beyond the hills that overlooked the shabby little town called Elmsfield, in the rich midland county of Rothershire.

Why do I dwell upon all these little details? Ask the criminal who is condemned to die why he thinks of the days of his innocence? Ask the parched traveller in the desert why he dreams of springs and green-fringed rivers? Ask the bankrupt why his mind wanders back to the well-filled coffers of the past? Ask the dying man why he thinks of those early days when he sat by his mother's knee and listened to the sweet music of her loving voice? Ask the rich man in the burning pit why he looks up at Lazarus in heaven?

Whirling wheels and bobbins, flashing wheels, and great black straps winding and twining about the wheels like snakes; clatter and clash and bang of machinery; a soft, oily, smoky kind of atmosphere; girls and men singing at their work: this was the factory where my father was manager. It stood by a river that came tumbling over those distant hills, gliding through the meadows on its way, by woods, under bridges, and at length flowing smoothly past the Elmsfield net factory, which at quiet eventide threw a great red reflection into the water. It was a wonderful place to me, and I have often sat by the river catching the minnows which swam about in the warm water that came down in a little artificial fall from the engine-house of the factory. I have also sat by the net-spinners amidst those whirling wheels, and found the straps and spindles and wheels mixed up in my thoughts, pounding and tearing and tattering those wonderful, weird, strange lands in the great fairy book into tatters, scattering the princes, and twisting and twirling all my notions thereon into crude, queer shapes. And the engine, with its great cranks plunging up and down, and its ponderous wheel revolving with a quiet, easy motion, like that of a tiger in a cage: these have plunged and revolved in my infantile mind until reason has almost

tottered on the brink of chaos. But never had these things bothered me so much as on the day after that little altercation with my parents. It had dawned upon me that there was something wrong in our household, and that humiliating exhibition of drunkenness had settled down into my mind like a dull, painful feeling, in which there was much sorrow and sympathy for my father. If he had not seemed ashamed, I should have thought the incident rather funny than otherwise; but I had seen his eye fall on me as mine used to fall, seeking the floor, when convicted of some childish error. I had noted my mother's angry look, too; and the words she uttered were so hard and sharp, coupled with her complaints to me before my father came, that I sat and brooded over the business with a long and lasting

sorrow.

My father was a kind, genial man; he could sing an excellent song, and he enjoyed a social glass. I think he neglected his home sometimes, and he occasionally got tipsy; but this was generally when he had been out with that strange gentleman, Mr. Welby, who was one of the proprietors of the factory where my father worked so hard. He was a sleek, soft-spoken, bland gentleman, this Mr. Welby, and he thought very highly of my father. Indeed, on the day after that disagreeable incident, I heard him tell my mother so when he called in the afternoon. It was a pity, he said, that my father would frequent the Norfolk Hotel. Some people thought Mr. Newbolde went there to see the young ladies; but this might not be true. My mother shook her head and sighed, and then she told me I had better go and look after my little sister. And, somehow or other, I hated Mr. Welby. I shivered when he patted me on the head, and I threw his sixpences into the gutter. Nothing could have induced me to like Mr. Welby, and my mother was very angry with me when I said he was an ugly, disagreeable person. She said she was a persecuted, unhappy woman, and nobody took her part.

I can see her now, with her dark brown hair falling in curls upon her shoulders, sitting rocking herself to and fro before her pier glass, with little Alice rolling at her feet, and myself sitting by her and wondering at all the mysteries of her toilette. She was a pretty woman; frivolous, dark, piquant. She sat before her glass for hours, and dressed her hair in a dozen ways, and asked me how I liked mamma best, with flowers in her hair or without.

At these times I often fondled and kissed her, but there was no warmth in her embrace. She seemed to receive all my love as a sort of tribute. There were occasions when she would chat with me, and appear to give me her confidence; but her talk was filled

with complaints of my father's neglect: and then a cloud seemed to come upon me, and presentiments of evil. For many days after that night when my father sent me to bed, there was a sort of quiet warfare going on between my unhappy parents. One night, however, the storm burst furiously, and that long after I was abed. I heard my mother say she had been deceived -her husband was a drunkard and a beggar. My father rejoined that his wife was a frivolous, silly woman, who thought more about the fashion of her ribbons than the regulation of her household. Oh, how I prayed to heaven that peace would come to these people, my parents; how I buried my head in the pillows and sobbed, and longed to throw myself between them and help them to forgive each other.

Several days passed after this, and I regularly accompanied my father to the factory. Sometimes he would sit in his little room for hours, looking vacantly at the drawings that were scattered about; and I heard him sigh, so sadly. And then the whirling wheels without, would get into my brain, and nearly drive me mad. One day Mr. Welby came in and gave my father a newspaper, which he read, and then handed to me.

"Take that to your mother, George," he said; " and say I shall be home presently."

I went home and gave my mother the paper. It recorded the fact that Mr. Newbolde had invented a new system of winding, and had patented other improvements in machinery, which would, no doubt, bring him fame and fortune.

"Oh, yes; I know all about it," my mother said. "Mr. Welby told me of it. Your father ought to be very much obliged to Mr. Welby for his kindness."

Mr. Welby again! How I hated that man! I, with my infantile instinct, how I disliked this oily, smiling villain-for villain he was. When my mother had gone to market on Saturday morning I used to sit with little Alice on the hearth, playing at building palaces of cards; and I taught her to say "nasty Mr. Welby," until Susan, our nurse (who used to have a policeman in the back kitchen on the sly), said she would tell my mother.

"If you do, I'll tell her about the policeman," I said, on one occasion.

"Do, and he shall lock you up; but you may tell her, if you like. I don't care for your ma, for that matter. She's nothing so wonderful."

Susan said this with an air of confidence and contempt that