yonder, a row of beauties, all smiling and gay, or pensive and
tender--interspersed with bright-faced children, blooming like so many
flowers along the old walls of the hall. How they please and interest me!
True, there are other portraits in our little house at home--not my hall
here--which, perhaps, I should love with a warmer regard; but let me not
cramp my sympathies, or indulge any early preferences. I must not be
partial. So I admire these here before me--and bow to them, one and all. I
fancy that they bow in return--that the stalwart warriors stretch vigorous
hands toward me--that the delicate beauties bend down their little heads,
all covered with powder, and return my homage with a smile.

Why not? Can my shabby coat make the lovely or proud faces ashamed of me?
Do they turn from me coldly because I'm the last of a ruined line? Do they
sneer at my napless hat, and laugh at my tattered elbows? I do not think
of them so poorly and unkindly. My coat is very shabby, but I think, at
least I hope, that it covers an honest heart.

So I bow to the noble and beautiful faces, and again they smile in return.
I seem to have wandered away into the past and dreamed in a realm of
silence. And yet--it is strange I did not hear her--Annie is still singing
through the hall.


III.


I promised to tell you of the incident of the coat, the unfortunate coat
which I sometimes think makes the rich folks visiting the hall look
sidewise at me. It is strange! Am I not _myself_, whether clad in velvet
or in fustian--in homespun fabric, or in cloth of gold? People say I am