all I knew of her. This was the only female influence in the house. The
drawing-room I was aware of only as a place of deadly good order, into
which nobody ever entered. It had three long windows opening on the lawn,
and communicated at the upper end, which was rounded like a great bay,
with the conservatory. Sometimes I gazed into it as a child from without,
wondering at the needlework on the chairs, the screens, the
looking-glasses which never reflected any living face. My father did not
like the room, which probably was not wonderful, though it never occurred
to me in those early days to inquire why.

I may say here, though it will probably be disappointing to those who
form a sentimental idea of the capabilities of children, that it did
not occur to me either, in these early days, to make any inquiry about
my mother. There was no room in life, as I knew it, for any such
person; nothing suggested to my mind either the fact that she must have
existed, or that there was need of her in the house. I accepted, as I
believe most children do, the facts of existence, on the basis with
which I had first made acquaintance with them, without question or
remark. As a matter of fact, I was aware that it was rather dull at
home; but neither by comparison with the books I read, nor by the
communications received from my school-fellows, did this seem to me
anything remarkable. And I was possibly somewhat dull too by nature,
for I did not mind. I was fond of reading, and for that there was
unbounded opportunity. I had a little ambition in respect to work, and
that too could be prosecuted undisturbed. When I went to the
university, my society lay almost entirely among men; but by that time
and afterwards, matters had of course greatly changed with me, and
though I recognized women as part of the economy of nature, and did not
indeed by any means dislike or avoid them, yet the idea of connecting
them at all with my own home never entered into my head. That continued
to be as it had always been, when at intervals I descended upon the
cool, grave, colorless place, in the midst of my traffic with the
world: always very still, well-ordered, serious,--the cooking very
good, the comfort perfect; old Morphew, the butler, a little older (but
very little older, perhaps on the whole less old, since in my childhood
I had thought him a kind of Methuselah); and Mrs. Weir, less active,
covering up her arms in sleeves, but folding and caressing them