And I must say for myself that I never had the least hope either from my unknown relations or Harry’s. I could not believe in a grandfather, nor any cold strange people belonging to me. If I had friends they should have shown themselves friendly when I needed it most. Now I thought, in my pride, I did not want to know anything about them. I pictured to myself an old morose man, that would have nothing to say to his poor son’s only child. In my mind I took quite a prejudice against the very place, and dreamt all that night of a mouldy old red-brick house, with endless passages, and little steps now and then to throw one down and break one’s limbs in the darkness. Somehow, both Harry’s imagination and mine fixed on that old red-brick house. _He_ thought it would be pleasant to settle me in such a place. _I_ had the most frightful fancies about it. I could see myself going about the old grey faded rooms, and Harry away at the war. I could see a pale creature, that was me, go wringing her hands down the old staircase, and trembling at the window waiting for the post coming in. I could see dreadful shadows of scenes that might be when the letters came, which I would not look at, but could not shut out of my heart. Harry did not think how he was torturing me when he spoke of that old red-brick house. It seemed, somehow, as if all my fears took solid form, and became real when they got a shelter to house themselves in. I grew superstitious, as most people do when their hearts are in great trouble. Going on from less to more I came to settle upon this as a token for evil. If anyhow, by any dreadful chance, something should come of it, and I should ever have that house in my power, then I should know that the light was to depart from me, and that I was to be set down, all by myself, and desolate, to wither down and pine to death where my hard-hearted grandfather had died. In my own mind, and without saying anything to anybody, I settled upon this sign; and grew so assured of it, just by fancying things, that, if I had heard that my grandfather had left me a fortune, and that we should be comfortable all the rest of our lives, I should have sunk down as if the intelligence was a blow. To be poor and happy, and have our own way to make, seemed just enough, somehow; and in my superstition I almost thought God would punish us for wanting more. I thought if wealth should possibly come, happiness would fly away. I made sure if Harry got his will it would be death to me. The thought of it put a new terror into my life. His going away was not now the first thing I was afraid of. I was afraid of his finding that home for me that he was so anxious about--that place where I could be comfortable without him. Every grief in the world came to be implied and suggested to my mind by the mention of that red-brick house. CHAPTER XI.