bjects, with two of Leader's landscapes. The counterpane
gleams, snowy white, beneath the lovely satin eider-down, which gives a
splash of colour to the room; and the room is _mine_!

Mine! Yes, but the world is very drab all the same. The sky is grey
to its farthest limits--an unrelieved greyness which presses upon one's
spirits. The landscape is grey, with no solitary touch of brightness
in it until you come to the lawn in front of my window, where there is
a gorgeous display of chrysanthemums. The cawing of the rooks is a
shade more mournful than usual, and the grey smoke from the stacks
above my head floats languidly on the heavy air.

And for the moment I would have it so, for it harmonises with my mood
and gives me the inspiration I need in order to write down the
occurrences of these later days. It is not that I am morbid or
downcast; I am sad, but not depressed; the outlook is not black--it is
just drab.

I suppose if anyone were to read what I have written thus far they
would guess the truth--that my dear old Mother Hubbard has been taken
from me. We laid her to rest a week ago in the little plot of ground
which must ever henceforward be very dear to me, and my heart hungers
for the sound of her voice and the sight of her kindly face. But I
cannot doubt that for her it is "far better," so I will not stoop to
self-pity.

And, after all, there is not a streak of grey in the picture I have to
reproduce. As I live over again those few last days of companionship I
feel the curtains to be drawn back from the windows of my soul; I
experience the freshness of a heaven-born zephyr. I find myself
smiling as one only smiles when memory is pleasing and there is deep
content, and I say to myself: "Thank God, it was indeed 'sunset and
evening star' and there was no 'moaning of the bar' when the spirit of
the gentle motherkin 'put out to sea,' and she went forth to meet her
'Pilot face to face.'"

I think the shock of Sar'-Ann's death upset her, for, like her Master,
she was easily touched with the feeling of other people's infirmities,
and though outwardly she was unexcited I knew that the deeps within her
were stirred.

We always slept together now, for I was uneasy when I was not with her.
For months past my cottage had been rarely used except as a bedroom,
but now I abandoned it altogether and had my bed brought into Mother
Hubbard's cottage and placed in the living-room, quite near to her own,
so that I