broken toys, collections of dried plants, curious stones, in an attic. The little drama of the house shaped itself for me, as I walked through the frowsy, faded rooms, with a touching insistence. This bedroom had never been used since Miss Eleanor died--and I could fancy the poor, little, timid, precise life flitting away among the well-known surroundings. This had been Miss Jackson's favourite room--it was so quiet--she had died there, sitting in her chair, a few weeks before. The leisurely, harmless routine of the quiet household rose before me. I could imagine Miss Jackson writing her letters, reading her book, eating her small meals, making the same humble and grateful remarks, entertaining her old friends. Year after year it had gone on, just the same, the clock ticking loud in the hall, the sun creeping round the old rooms, the birds singing in the garden, the faint footsteps in the road. It had begun, that gentle routine, long before I had been born into the world; and it was strange to me to think that, as I passed through the most stirring experiences of my life, nothing ever stirred or moved or altered here. Miss Jackson had felt Miss Eleanor's death very much; she had hardly ever left the house since, and they had had no company. Yes, what a woefully bewildering thing death swooping down into that quiet household, with all its tranquil security, must have been! One wondered what Miss Eleanor had felt, when she knew she had to die, to pass out into the unknown dark out of a world so tender, so familiar, so peaceful; and what had poor Miss Jackson made of it, when she was left alone? She must have found it all very puzzling, very dreary. And yet, in the dim past, perhaps one or both of them, had had dreams of a fuller life, had fancied that something more than tenderness had looked out of the eyes of a man; well, it had come to nothing, whatever it might have been; and the two old ladies had settled down, perhaps with some natural repining, to their unexciting, contented life, the day filled with little duties and pleasures, the nights with innocent sleep. It had not been a selfish life--they had been good to the poor, the maid told me; and in old days they had often had their nephews and nieces to stay with them. But those children had grown up and gone out into the world, and no longer cared to return to the dull little house with its precise ways, and the fidgety love that had once embraced them. The whole thing seemed a mysterious mixture of purposelessness and contentment. Rumours of wars, social convulsions, patriotic hopes, great ideas, had swept on their course outside, and had never stirred the drowsy current of life behind the garden walls. The sisters had lived, sweetly, perhaps, and softly, like trees in some sequestered woodland, hardly recognising their own gentle lapse of strength and activity.