Page:Traits and Trials.pdf/291

Rh From any one else with what rapt attention should I have listened to these narratives, but to him I always turned a reluctant ear. Whenever he came, which he often did, into the large old nursery, where the hearth would have sufficed for ten fire-places of these degenerate days; I used to draw my stool close to my nurse, and, leaning my head on her knee, keep fast hold of her hand—she encouraged this, and used to tell me she would never go away.

The time of her departure was kept a secret, but I knew it; the coach past the road at the end of the horse-chestnut avenue, and one night, they thought that I was asleep, I heard that two days after she was there to meet the coach, and go to London, to go there for ever. I buried my face in my pillow that my crying might not be heard. I slept, and my dreams brought the old avenue, the coach stopping, as vividly as when I really saw them.

I awoke the next morning, pale and heavy eyed, but I was subject to violent head-aches,