A sentence in this “Dream Children,” which at eighteen I passed by with a compassionate sort of wonder, only thinking that it gave me “the blues” to read it, and that I was glad Roy was alive, I have seized upon and learned all over again now. I write it down to the dull music of the rain. “And how, when he died, though he had not been dead an hour, it seemed as if he had died a great while ago, such a distance there is betwixt life and death; and how I bore his death, as I thought, pretty well at first, but afterwards it haunted and haunted me; and though I did not cry or take it to heart as some do, and as I think he would have done if I had died, yet I missed him all day long, and knew not till then how much I had loved him. I missed his kindness and I missed his crossness, and wished him to be alive again to be quarrelling with him (for we quarrelled sometimes), rather than not have him again.” How still the house is! I can hear the coach rumbling away at the half-mile corner, coming up from the evening train. A little arrow of light has just cut the gray gloom of the West. Ten o’clock. The coach to which I sat listening rumbled up to the gate and stopped. Puzzled for the moment, and feeling as inhospitable as I knew how, I went down to the door. The driver was already on the steps, with a bundle in his arms that proved to be a rather minute child; and a lady, veiled, was just stepping from the carriage into the rain. Of course I came to my senses at that, and, calling to Phœbe that Mrs. Forceythe had come, sent her out an umbrella. She surprised me by running lightly up the steps. I had imagined a somewhat advanced age and a sedate amount of infirmities, to be necessary concomitants of aunthood. She came in all sparkling with rain-drops, and, gently pushing aside the hand with which I was trying to pay her driver, said, laughing:-- “Here we are, bag and baggage, you see, ‘big trunk, little trunk,’ &c., &c. You did not expect me? Ah, my letter missed then. It is too bad to take you by storm in this way. Come, Faith! No, don’t trouble about the trunks just now. Shall I go right in here?” Her voice had a sparkle in it, like the drops on her veil, but it was low and very sweet. I took her in by the dining-room fire, and was turning to take off the little girl’s things, when a soft hand stayed me, and I saw that she had drawn off the wet veil. A face somewhat pale looked down at me,--she is taller than I,--with large, compassionate eyes. “I am too wet to kiss you, but I must have a look,” she said, smiling. “That will do. You are like your mother, very like.” I don’t know what possessed me, whether it was the sudden, sweet feeling of kinship with something alive, or whether it was her face or her voice, or all together, but I said:-- “I don’t think you are too wet to be kissed,” and threw my arms about her neck,--I am not of the kissing kind, either, and I had on my new bombazine, and she _was_ very wet.