its shape, and fancied it a
huge lump growing under my fingers. The extreme unpleasantness of this
idea just prevented my falling asleep; and I roused myself and sat up
again.

"'It's no use feeling,' I thought, 'I'll look in the glass.'

"There was one mirror in the room. It hung above the mantelpiece. It
was old, deeply framed in dark wood, and was so hung as to slope
forwards into the room.

"In front of the fire stood an old-fashioned, cushioned arm-chair,
with a very high back, and a many-frilled chintz cover. A footstool
lay near it. It was here that my grandmother had been sitting. I
jumped out of bed, put the footstool into the chair that I might get
to a level with the glass, and climbed on to it. Thanks to the slope
of the mirror, I could now see my reflection as well as the dim
firelight would permit.

"'What a silly child!' you will say, Ida. Very silly, indeed, my dear.
And how one remembers one's follies! At the end of half a century, I
recall my reflection in that old nursery mirror more clearly than I
remember how I looked in the glass before which I put on my bonnet
this evening to come to tea with you: the weird, startled glance of my
eyes, which, in their most prominent stage of weariness, gazed at me
out of the shadows of the looking glass, the tumbled tufts of hair,
the ghostly effect of my white night-dress. As to my nose, I could
absolutely see nothing of its shape; the firelight just caught the
round tip, which shone like a little white toadstool from the gloom,
and this was all.

"'One can't see the shape, full face,' I thought. 'If I had only
another looking-glass.'

"But there was not another. I knew it, and yet involuntarily looked
round the room. Suddenly I exclaimed aloud, 'Mr. Joseph will do!'

"Who was Mr. Joseph?--you will ask. My dear Ida, I really do not know.
I have not the least idea. I had heard him called Mr. Joseph, and I
fancy he was a connection of the family. All I knew of him was his
portrait, a _silhouette_, elegantly glazed and framed in black wood,
which hung against the nursery wall. I was ignorant of his surname and
history. I had never examined his features. But I knew that happily he
had been very stout, since his ample coat and waistcoat, cut out in
black paper, converted the glass which covered them into an excellent
mirror for my dolls.

"Worthy Mr. Joseph! Here he was coming in useful again. How much we
owe to our forefathers! I soon unhooked him, and cl