But he could not be clear of anything except the stop which was coming. To sit in his old chair with his old book, the fresh morning air breathing in upon him, his little girl coming and going, these were not much to have, of all the good things of which the world is full; but they were enough for him. And to think that one of these mornings he should no longer be there, the chair pushed away against the wall, the books packed up on its shelf, or worse, sent off to some dusty auction-room to be sold; and himself--himself: where would old Sir Ludovic be? shivering, unclothed in some unknown being, perhaps seeing wistfully, unable to help it, the dismantling of everything here, and his little girl crying in a corner, but unable to console her. He knew he ought to be thinking of high spiritual communion, of the music of the spheres. But he could not; even of his little Peggy crying for her old father and missing him, he did not think much: but most of the dull, strange fact that he would be gone away, a thing so strange and yet so certain that it gave him a vertigo and bewildering giddiness--and sometimes, too, a kind of dreary impatience, a desire to get it over and know the worst that could happen; though he was not afraid of any worst. There was no Inferno in that vague world before him, nothing but dimness; though, perhaps, that was almost worse than an Inferno--a wide, vague, confusing desert of the unknown. These thoughts were present with him even while he held playful conversations with Margaret and talked to old John and Bell, always with a certain kindly mockery in all he said to them. He laughed at Bell, though she was so important a personage, just as he laughed at his little Peggy: yet all the while, as he laughed, he remembered that to-morrow, perhaps, he might laugh no more. One thing, however, that he did not think it necessary to do was to send for the doctor, to try what medical skill might be able to suggest toward a little postponement of the end. What could the doctor do for him? there was nothing the matter with him. He was only drowsy, falling asleep without knowing why. Even now, while Sir Ludovic sat upright in his chair and defied it, he felt his eyelids coming together, his head drooping in spite of himself; and he felt a wondering curiosity in his mind, after a momentary absence of this kind, whether other people noticed it, or if it was only himself who knew. “Do you want anything, papa?” said Margaret, at the door. She had her hat in her hand, and stood at the door looking in, with little more than her head visible and the outline of her light summer frock. “Going out, my little Peggy?” He raised his head with a start, and the young, fresh apparition seemed to float upon him through some door in the visionary darkness about, as well as through that actual opening at which she stood.