ed me--all was
quite dark and silent. I shut my eyes, and tried to go to sleep again.
But it was no use. I was quite awake, and unconsciously I opened my
eyes. What was that? I have said it was quite dark, but up there, high
up, there was a light that I had not seen till I turned my head. And
there in the light--or did the light come from it?--was a round,
staring, white face grinning down at me. I saw its eyes, its mouth, all
its features--it seemed to me the goblin face by which a wicked man in
one of old Effie's stories had been haunted. I stared at it like a bird
at a serpent, though my heart had stopped from terror--then gradually I
saw that it was moving, and that roused me. With a fearful shriek I
dashed out of bed, getting by some instinct to the door, and knew
nothing more till an hour or two later I opened my eyes to find myself
in mamma's arms, for she was just coming into her room to go to bed when
I fell into them!

It was all explained to me. There was a tiny window on to the stairs
high up in that corner of the room, through which the light of mamma's
candle had shone on to the old Delft vase, and even made it seem to
move, as she stepped upwards. I was sensible enough for my age to
understand and to believe it, but all the same I was ill for a long,
long time. And the cloud over my childhood never entirely faded till
childhood was left behind. Still good comes with ill. I might never,
during the few years she was left with us, have learnt to know my
darling mother as I did--her wonderful tenderness and
"understandingness"--had it not been for my vision of the "Goblin Face."

The old vase now stands near my bedside, where night and morning I can
see it and recall the memories connected with it, and there, I hope, it
will stand till I die.

[Illustration]

THE LOST BROOCH.

[Illustration]

"What is the matter, Linda? What are you looking for? It does so fidget
me, dear, when I am sitting quietly reading, for you to keep moving
about and pulling all the chairs and tables out of their places!" said
Grandmamma, kindly of course--she always spoke kindly, but with a little
vexation in her tone.

"It's my scissors, Grandmamma--my little beautiful new best scissors
with the gilt ends," said Linda plaintively, "I _know_ I left them with
my work last night, and when I unfolded it they were gone. Some one
_must_ have taken them--I don't like that new housemaid, Grandmamma. I
think she is pokey. I f