sympathetically though in perplexity, for what could there be to affect him thus visibly?
How bitterly annoyed I was with myself for not having had moral courage to meet him in the first instance. Now I was a prisoner against my own will, and compelled to be an involuntary spy on his actions. For a moment the notion of confessing my presence suggested itself to me, but I quickly relinquished it as impolitic. In my uncle’s weak state I dared not run the risk of startling him, as I must inevitably have done, by speaking or moving. Hidden in the curtain, I ran comparatively little risk of discovery, only when my uncle came quite close to me and began fitting a key into the little carved oak davenport, which stood in the narrow space between the window recess and the wall, I could scarcely stifle the loud beating of my heart or the sobbing of my breath.
I leant against the wall, I fancied I was going to sneeze, and all the blood rushed to my face in agony. Uncle John’s slipper momentarily came in contact with my foot, and I recoiled horror-struck. He pushed a fold of curtain out of his way and it fell back against my face, almost stifling me.
He had been busy for some minutes—I wondered what he was doing, and ventured to advance my eye to a crevice in the moreen. I heard the crackling of paper. I saw that he had lifted up the davenport lid, and was hunting through the drawers. Those faded work materials, entangled wools of many colours, morsels of silk and velvet, rusty scissors, thimbles, trinkets, evidenced a woman’s presence in days gone by. I remembered how Butterworth had told me that this davenport had been constantly used by my grandmother, Uncle John’s mother; probably then the things had never been disturbed since her death.
Amongst the stores Uncle John had now found a bundle of old letters, tied together with time-yellowed pink ribbon. He had drawn forward a chair, and was reading them one by one, his eyes moist, the hands which held the open sheets trembling so painfully that he was compelled to rest them on the table.
I could not decipher the writing, but I stood near enough to distinguish that a woman’s clear, delicate hand had traced the characters, but so long ago that the ink was faded to a pale brown. There was not time to search through the whole packet, and presently the old man was gathering the letters together again, and striving with his feeble fingers, to knot the ribbon around them.
What had he discovered now, so carefully stored away in that sandalwood box?—Only an old-fashioned, long, white kid glove, that was mildewed by age—such a tiny hand as it must have fitted, and how dainty had once been the gold embroidery which surmounted the sleeve part—oh, well a day, where was the wearer and who had she been?
The sight of that old relic overpowered my uncle, he actually wept over it. He drew out the crushed fingers, he spread them upon his own horny palm, he even raised them to his lips. It would seem that some bygone vision came before him with that discoloured glove, for his eyes lightened, his cheek glowed, and his poor thin lips kept moving incessantly as if addressing some one.
Outside the door was a passing footstep. Uncle John did not hear it, but something was dropped in the corridor; there was a rattle as of a falling extinguisher, and he started violently, banged down the lid of the davenport and listened.
The steps were coming nearer; I distinctly heard Nurse Butterworth’s short dry cough; then the door of the boudoir was jerked open, and the old woman stood on the threshold, a very grotesque object to look upon.
She was in her night attire, her bare feet stuck into a pair of unlaced boots, a quarter of a yard of white drapery coming into view between these and the blue flannel petticoat which her short calico bedgown surmounted. A few thin, gray curls struggled from beneath a wide-frilled night cap, and a black bonnet finished off her costume, and gave peculiar effect to it. If I had not been in mortal terror of discovery, I could not have restrained my laughter.
“Good gracious, Sir John, what a fright you have given me, to be sure, sir,” she exclaimed, in the reproachful tone a nurse might have used in correcting a disobedient child. “What are you doing here at this time of night, and in the cold, too, and with them rheumatiz?—come, sir, go to your room, and let me see about something warm for you. Oh dear, to think that as soon as my back’s turned you’re in mischief! And I’d never have know’d, and you might have catched your death of cold, if Jane hadn’t seen the light under the door when she was scouring the backstairs, and comed up and telled me, and I didn’t even stop to put on my gown.” Mrs. Butterworth made this last remark in an excusing voice, and with a downwards glance to the white draperies, for she knew my uncle to be a remarkably shy and modest man, and she paid due regard to his prejudices.
But in the present instance he did not seem to be affected either by her omissions or her apologies. He stood speechless in the corner, like a child enduring correction, and feebly trifled with the lock of the davenport.
“What have you been after?” pursued the old housekeeper. “What—turning over them nasty rubbidge?—bless me, they’d be a deal better burnt nor made such a sorrow of. I don’t say it warn’t a mistake, Master John, but when it’s over and done for, years and years ago, why should you go on a fretting and a making troubles to no use? You’d better give me that key, sir, and I’ll get shot o’ the things an’ let little Miss Amyce have’t space for her gewgaws—it ’ud be a fine exchange. Ye sud think on her bits o’ pleasures an’ her prospects, honey, instead o’ addling over what’s all trash an’ nonsense.”
“I can’t help it, Butterworth. I don’t really care now, only I can’t help thinking,” groaned the poor old man, childishly.
“Don’t care!—can’t help thinking—bless me, Master John, you’ve nothing to care about, and you musn’t think o’ owt but keeping yoursel warm and getting strong. You’d be cured fast enough
