'Does _it_ see me, grandmother?' My grandmother regards it with a gloomy air; evidently she has doubts. She does not commit herself, however, but says: 'It will belong to you, child, when I am gone. It must be kept always in the family.' The tone in which she utters these words denotes that evil will fall upon the family when this heirloom is lost sight of. I am not grateful for the prospective gift. It has already become a frightful incubus; it weighs me down, and is a future as well as a present torment. I think it has lived long enough--too long--and that when my grandmother goes, she ought to take it with her. Happening to catch the eye of the figure while this thought is in my mind, I am convinced that it shows in its ugly face a consciousness of my bad feeling towards it; its eyes and lips threaten me. It would have terrified, but it would not have surprised me to find it suddenly gifted with the power of speech, and to hear it utter dreadful words. But happily for my peace of mind no such miracle happens. I look at my grandmother, and I begin to fancy that she, from long staring at it, bears in her face a resemblance to the face of the monkey-man. For how much longer will my grandmother sit and stare at it? For how many more days and weeks and years? She has frequently told me that naughty boys were invariably 'fetched away' to a dismal place by Some One wearing horns and a tail. She made no mention of naughty girls; and sometimes when she has been delighting me with these wholesome lessons, a sort of rebellion has possessed me that I was not born a girl. Now, if Some One were to come and 'fetch' my grandmother away, it would not grieve me; I should rejoice. But I dare not for my life give utterance to my thought. Says my grandmother, with a nod at the stone figure, which, suddenly animated by a mysterious influence, returns the nod: 'I had it in my pocket on my wedding-day.' The circumstance of its being a guest at my grandmother's wedding invests it with an additional claim to my protection when she is gone. How happy I should be if it would fall into the fireplace, and break into a thousand pieces! 'Grandmother!' 'Well, child.' Was the man with the knob on the top of his head----' My grandmother interrupts me. 'You mean the gentleman, child.' 'Yes, I mean the gentleman--and who was always eating his nails,--was he like that?' Pointing to the stone monkey-figure. 'Like that, child! How can such an idea have entered your head? No; he was a very handsome man.' A pure fiction, I am convinced, if nothing worse. How _could_ a man with a knob on his head, and who was always eating his nails, be handsome?