I've always had this curious difficulty in realising actual things, such as whether I have shut a door or not, or whether I have put a jewel away in its case properly. It has always been quite easy for me to realise unseen things--such as a death or a fire that has not yet occurred, or any sort of scene at which I have not been present. I am sure that I sometimes see these more vividly than people who have actually witnessed them with their bodily eyes. But when it comes to ordinary everyday facts--why, I have stood irresolutely by a trunk ten or fifteen minutes many and many a time, lifting the lid up and down in order to make absolutely sure that something that I had put away in under the lid was actually there and had not jumped out again. It was in this pernickety way (the word is beautifully expressive) that I always guarded Little Yeogh Wough. People accused me of only loving him so desperately because he was good-looking. I dare say his looks went some little way with me. I have never pretended that I should devote myself to a person with a hare lip as well as to a person without one; and certainly the boy of my heart, besides being glorious to look at, had a knack of making people surround him with attractive things that added to his own attractiveness. Whenever he went into a shop to have some plain and practical article bought for him, he managed to choose for himself an idealised example of the same thing, at quite double the suggested price, and have it sent in. Prices meant nothing to him, and at the age of seven he was not half so good a financier as his sister of four. "That there boy 'ull never 'ave a penny in 'is pocket in all 'is life, not even if he gets thousands a year," Old Nurse was accustomed to say to my secretary, who was a willing listener. "Money burns 'oles with 'im, wherever he carries it." "Oh yes, Nurse. But he always spends it on his mother. Look at the flowers he buys her--violets and carnations, all through the winter, and even roses! That's really wonderful, you know, Nurse, in the present day, when children are so selfish." "M'yes," rejoined Old Nurse doubtfully. "But what do 'e do it for? It's just jealousy; that's what it is, just jealousy, so as nobody else shan't give 'is mother anything. Why, there was Miss Clare yesterday, she spent 'er week's pocket money buyin' some roses for 'er mother, and 'e 'appened to meet us comin' home with 'em when he was walkin' up the road with a schoolboy, and what did he do, d'you think? Why, he ran as 'ard as he could and bought some carnations and got 'ome with them first and gave them to 'is mother; and when the poor little girl got in with 'er roses, she was thanked for 'em, of course, but they wasn't worn or put on the study table. They was just put away in the back drawing-room, where nobody never goes." "Ah, that's it, you see!" said Miss Torry. "But, of course, Nurse, the little girl ought to have told exactly what had happened."