only person present in her room when she
died. I just remember this woman, in a dim
childish way, as being odd in her look and
manner, and no great favourite with anybody
in the house but her mistress. Well, on the
morning of my mother's death, she disappeared
from the house in the strangest way,
leaving behind her a most singular and
mysterious letter to my father, asserting that in
my mother's dying moments, a secret had
been confided to her which she was charged
to divulge to her master when her mistress
was no more; and adding that she was
afraid to mention this secret, and that, to
avoid being questioned about it, she had
resolved on leaving the house for ever. She
had been gone some hours when the letter
was opened—and she has never been seen or
heard of since that time. This circumstance
seemed to make almost as strong an impression
on my father's mind as the shock of my
mother's death. Our neighbours and servants
all thought (as I think) that the woman
was mad; but he never agreed with them,
and I know that he has neither destroyed
nor forgotten the letter from that time to
this."

"A strange event, Rosamond,—a very
strange event. I don't wonder that it has
made a lasting impression on him."

"Depend upon it, Lenny, the servants and
the neighbours were right—the woman was
mad. Any way, however, it was certainly a
singular event in our family. All old houses
have their romance—and that is the romance
of our house. But years and years have
passed since then; and, what with time, and
what with the changes we are going to make,
I have no fear that my dear, good father will
spoil our plans. Give him a new north
garden at Porthgenna, where he can walk
the decks, as I call it,—give him new north
rooms to live in—and I will answer for the
result. But all this is in the future; let us
get back to the present time. When shall
we pay our flying visit to Porthgenna, Lenny,
and plunge into the important business of
checking Mr. Horlock's estimate for the
repairs?"

"We have three weeks more to stay here,
Rosamond."

"Yes; and then we must go back to Long
Beckley. I promised that best and biggest
of men, the vicar, that we would pay our
first visit to him. He is sure not to let us off
under three weeks or a month."

"In that case, then, we had better say two
months hence for the visit to Porthgenna.
Is your writing-case in the room, Rosamond?"

"Yes; close by us, on the table."

"Write to Mr. Horlock then, love—and
appoint a meeting in two months' time at the
old house. Tell him also, as we must not trust
ourselves on unsafe stairs—especially
considering how dependent I am on banisters—
to have the west staircase repaired
immediately. And, while you have the pen in
your hand, perhaps it may save trouble if you
write a second note to the housekeeper at
Porthgenna, to tell her when she may expect
us."

Rosamond sat down gaily at the table and
dipped her pen in the ink with a little
flourish of triumph.

"In two months," she exclaimed joyfully,
"I shall see the dear old place again! In
two months, Lenny, our profane feet will be
raising the dust in the solitudes of the North
Rooms."

THE STOKER'S POETRY.

POETRY used to sing in the hedge and on
the roof-top—now it hisses in the boiler of
Number Three engine, Slough station, and
is audible in that demon scream, terrible as
the shriek of death to tardy pointsmen and
blundering old men, with shaky hands or
rusty switches. "Voices of steam," I burst
out, as I unconsciously seized an angry
stoker's hand at the Didcot junction the
other day, "ye are many-tongued prophecies
of a coming age—perhaps a golden one,
perhaps, rather, one dyed all crimson with
the blood of nations." I might have gone
further, had not my sable friend's "Darn
your nonsense, here's the three-fifteen
starting!"—cut me short.

If my friend had remained, I should have
questioned him of many things of much
importance to transcendental poets, but not
much so to the railway share market. However
disgusted with the world in general,
and stokers in particular, I ran for a
ticket, which the angry tooth of the
clerk's cork-presser only bit a hole in,
and tumbled, meditative and poetical, into
the stuffed and wadded chair of a first-class
carriage.

Before me sat an old port-wine-coloured
gentleman, with a bow-window stomach, and
a bunch of watch-seals as large as a baby's
head; said old gentleman being wrapped up
as if for a north-pole voyage, and having an
apoplectic voice that forbad all conversation
as at once presumptuous and dangerous.
After a treaty of legs, I fell a-musing on
poetry, bygone and present. You may talk
as you like, I said to myself, I believe it is
all here, just as much as ever it was; for
look you, call the world a boa, and the poetry
so much gold, it doesn't matter whether I
have it in gold or copper or paper—it is still
the same five pounds ten and of the same
value; or call it, mind you, a close drawer
and the poetry a grub I put in; whether it
is cocoon, chrysalis, or black and yellow
moth, still there's the thing safe. It's like a
plant, this poetry—now leaves, now mist and
gases—now away in the clouds, now down
again to rain. It can't escape; there's the
same amount of matter. And so in poetry.
The poetry's here still; and if I were to cut