ndles which lit it, but they did not entirely
muffle the sound of voice and laughter. We are privileged to enter that
front door, and to penetrate to the domestic sanctum.

It is not the presence of company which makes Mr. Yorke's habitation
lively, for there is none within it save his own family, and they are
assembled in that farthest room to the right, the back parlour.

This is the usual sitting-room of an evening. Those windows would be
seen by daylight to be of brilliantly-stained glass, purple and amber
the predominant hues, glittering round a gravely-tinted medallion in the
centre of each, representing the suave head of William Shakespeare, and
the serene one of John Milton. Some Canadian views hung on the
walls--green forest and blue water scenery--and in the midst of them
blazes a night-eruption of Vesuvius; very ardently it glows, contrasted
with the cool foam and azure of cataracts, and the dusky depths of
woods.

The fire illuminating this room, reader, is such as, if you be a
southern, you do not often see burning on the hearth of a private
apartment. It is a clear, hot coal fire, heaped high in the ample
chimney. Mr. Yorke _will_ have such fires even in warm summer weather.
He sits beside it with a book in his hand, a little round stand at his
elbow supporting a candle; but he is not reading--he is watching his
children. Opposite to him sits his lady--a personage whom I might
describe minutely, but I feel no vocation to the task. I see her,
though, very plainly before me--a large woman of the gravest aspect,
care on her front and on her shoulders, but not overwhelming, inevitable
care, rather the sort of voluntary, exemplary cloud and burden people
ever carry who deem it their duty to be gloomy. Ah, well-a-day! Mrs.
Yorke had that notion, and grave as Saturn she was, morning, noon, and,
night; and hard things she thought if any unhappy wight--especially of
the female sex--who dared in her presence to show the light of a gay
heart on a sunny countenance. In her estimation, to be mirthful was to
be profane, to be cheerful was to be frivolous. She drew no
distinctions. Yet she was a very good wife, a very careful mother,
looked after her children unceasingly, was sincerely attached to her
husband; only the worst of it was, if she could have had her will, she
would not have permitted him to have any friend in the world beside
herself. All his relations were insupportable to her, and she kept them
at arm's