Charles Collins, one of the original pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, her son, and Wilkie's brother, paid frequent week-end visits to our house, and the memory of Charles is surrounded by a halo of mystery and wonder, for he possessed a magic snuff-box made of gold inset with jewels, and at a word of command a little bird appeared on it, which disappeared in the same wonderful manner. But what was even more wonderful, Mr. Collins persuaded me that the bird flew all round the room singing until it returned to the box and fascinated me all over again. In after years I remember seeing a similar box and discovering the deception and mechanism. My disappointment for my shattered ideal was very hard to bear. My imagination as a small child, although it endowed me with happy hours, was sometimes rather too much for me. On being presented with a sword, I invented a lion to kill with it, and grew so frightened finally of the creature of my own invention that at the last moment, preparatory to a triumphant rush intended to culminate in victory, I was obliged to retreat in terror behind my mother's skirts, my clutch becoming so frantic that she had to release herself from my grasp. On leaving Harewood Square, my parents went to live at Upton Park, Slough, where I spent some of the happiest days of my life. Always a charming little place, it was then to me very beautiful. I remember the old church, delightfully situated by the roadside, the little gate by the low wall, and the long line of dark green yews bordering the flagged paths, where the stately people walked into church, followed by small Page boys in livery carrying big bags containing the prayer-books. Leech has depicted those quaint children in many a humorous drawing. There were two ladies whom I recollect as far from stately. I wish I could meet them now. Such subjects for a caricature one rarely has the opportunity of seeing. Quite six feet, ungainly, gawky, with odd clothes and queer faces, not unlike those of birds, they always inspired me with the utmost curiosity and astonishment. These ladies bore the name of "Trumper," and I remember they called upon us one day. The servant--perhaps embarrassed by their strange appearance--announced them as the "Miss Trumpeters," and the accidental name labelled them for ever. Even now I think of them as "the Trumpeters." The eccentricity of the Miss Trumpers was evidently hereditary, for on the occasion of a dinner-party given at their house, old Mrs. Trumper startled her guests at an early stage of the meal by bending a little too far over her plate, and causing her wig and cap to fall with a splash into her soup. The ivy mantled tower was claimed very jealously in those days by the natives of Upton to be the tower of Gray's "Elegy," but it was in Stoke Poges churchyard that Gray wrote his exquisite poem, and it is there by the east wall of the old church that "the poet sleeps his last sleep."