How I dreaded it. The gloomy, half-closed house, the garden paths, green with damp and thick with weeds, the servants acting entirely upon their own authority, and the master querulous, impatient, and unjust, either shut up in his own room brooding over the past and present, or freely distributing oaths, complaints, and sometimes even blows, amongst the unfortunate inmates of his household. As for myself, I seldom came within the range of his arm without being terrified away, and it had been a great relief to me when I returned home for the previous Christmas holidays to find that he was absent, and the term of my penance passed peacefully, if nothing else. But now he was at home again, so my master informed me, my father had never dreamt of writing to me, and I looked forward to the coming visit with dread. A strange, unnatural state of things for a child of eight years old, who had never known a mother’s love nor care, had never even heard her name mentioned by any one with whom he was connected. ‘What was your mother like?’ continued Jemmy, after a few minutes’ pause, during which we two unfortunates had been ruminating upon our lot. ‘Had she light-coloured hair, like Mrs Murray, or dark, like the cook?’ ‘I don’t know,’ I answered, sadly. ‘I never saw her, that I remember.’ ‘Haven’t you got a likeness of her at home?’ he demanded with surprise. ‘Wait till I show you mine.’ He fumbled about in his waistcoat, and produced a much faded daguerreotype of an ordinary-looking young woman in old-fashioned habiliments. ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ he exclaimed, with weak enthusiasm as he pressed the miniature to his lips. ‘Oh, how I wish she hadn’t died! I know I should have loved her so much!’ I made no reply. Poor Jemmy’s imagination did not run so fast as mine. If my mother had lived to side with my father, where should I have been between them? I turned my face away, and sighed. It was strange that I had no idea of what my mother had been like. I had never even formed one, neither had I any relation to whose memory I might have appealed on the subject. My father lived a solitary, aimless life in the old neglected house I have alluded to, seldom leaving his own apartments, except at meal times, and certainly never asking any friend to enter them to bear him company. The servants had their parents, or lovers, or brothers, to visit them by stealth in the kitchen, but the master sat by himself, gloomy and pre-occupied, and irritable almost to frenzy when provoked. No wonder I wished that I could have spent the Easter holidays with Mrs Murray. But a great surprise was in store for me. The boys had hardly concluded the game of football they had been carrying on during my colloquy with Jemmy, when Mrs Murray came smiling down the playground in search of me. ‘I’ve a piece of news for you, Master Vere,’ she exclaimed. ‘Some one is waiting to see you in the parlour.’ ‘Not papa!’ I said, quickly.