What can I do to be for ever known,
And make the age to come my own?


These lines of Cowley were new to me, but the sentiment was not
new, and I marvelled how the old tailor could see through me so
well. So it was strange to me to discover presently that he had
not been thinking of me at all, but of his own young days, when
that couplet sang in his head, and he, too, had thirsted to set off
for Grub Street, but was afraid, and while he hesitated old age
came, and then Death, and found him grasping a box-iron.

I hurried home with the mouthful, but neighbours had dropped in,
and this was for her ears only, so I drew her to the stair, and
said imperiously,


What can I do to be for ever known,
And make the age to come my own?


It was an odd request for which to draw her from a tea-table, and
she must have been surprised, but I think she did not laugh, and in
after years she would repeat the lines fondly, with a flush on her
soft face. 'That is the kind you would like to be yourself!' we
would say in jest to her, and she would reply almost passionately,
'No, but I would be windy of being his mother.' It is possible
that she could have been his mother had that other son lived, he
might have managed it from sheer love of her, but for my part I can
smile at one of those two figures on the stair now, having long