er was much of a one for a late dinner, me sewing all the time, for
I always knew my place, though I believe in her kind heart she'd have
been willing for me to eat with her, bless her! Then she'd look at me
so wistful-like, and say, "I'll leave you now, Sarah--eat your tea and
don't keep out too late. Good-bye--good-bye..." Ah, dear me!

I'd sit and think, with the leaves dropping quiet and yellow around me
and the water dripping from the lion's mouth and sometimes I'd close my
eyes and--I'll swear I could hear them playing quietly beyond me! They
were never noisy children. I'll say now something I never mentioned,
even to her, and I'd say it if my life hung by it. More than once I've
left the metal tea-set shut in the biscuit box and found it spread out
of mornings. My mistress slept in the room next me with the door open,
and am I to think that William Hodges, or Katey, crippled with
rheumatism, or that lazy old John came down and set them out? I've
taken a hasty run down to that garden (we called it the children's
garden, after a while) because she took an idea, and seen the swing
just dying down, and not a breath stirring. That's the plain gospel of
it. And I've lain in my bed, just off the two cribs, and held my
breath at what I felt and heard. She knew it, too. But never heard so
much as I, and often cried for it. I never knew why that should be,
nor Hodges, either.

There was one rainy day I went up in the garret and pulled the old
rocking-horse out and dusted it and put it out in the middle and set
the doors open and went away. It was directly over our heads as we sat
sewing, and--ah, well, it's many years ago now, a many and a many, and
it's no good raking over too much what's past and gone, I know. And as
Hodges said, afterward, the rain on the roof was loud and steady....

I don't know why I should have thought of the rocking-horse, and she
not that was always thinking and planning for them. Hodges said it was
because I had had children. But I could never have afforded them any
such toy as that. Still, perhaps he was right. It was odd his saying
that (he knew the facts about me, of course, by that time) being such a
dry man, with no fancy about him, you might say, and disliking the
whole subject, as he always did, but so it was. Men will often come
out with something like that, and quite astonish one.

He never made a hint of objection when I was made housekeeper, and that
was like him