pilasters) of my dear mother's little sitting-room; and lower still,
raised on a flight of six steps, was a very handsome-looking door, with
a projecting porch. All the windows, with smallish panes and largish
frames, were relieved with stone copings; so that the house had an air
of solidity and well-to-do-ness about it,--nothing tricky on the one
hand, nothing decayed on the other. The house stood a little back from
the garden gates, which were large, and set between two piers surmounted
with vases. Many might object that in wet weather you had to walk some
way to your carriage; but we obviated that objection by not keeping a
carriage. To the right of the house the enclosure contained a little
lawn, a laurel hermitage, a square pond, a modest greenhouse, and half-
a-dozen plots of mignonette, heliotrope, roses, pinks, sweet-William,
etc. To the left spread the kitchen-garden, lying screened by espaliers
yielding the finest apples in the neighborhood, and divided by three
winding gravel-walks, of which the extremest was backed by a wall,
whereon, as it lay full south, peaches, pears, and nectarines sunned
themselves early into well-remembered flavor. This walk was
appropriated to my father. Book in hand, he would, on fine days, pace
to and fro, often stopping, dear man, to jot down a pencil-note,
gesticulate, or soliloquize. And there, when not in his study, my
mother would be sure to find him. In these deambulations, as he called
them, he had generally a companion so extraordinary that I expect to be
met with a hillalu of incredulous contempt when I specify it.
Nevertheless I vow and protest that it is strictly true, and no
invention of an exaggerating romancer. It happened one day that my
mother had coaxed Mr. Caxton to walk with her to market. By the way
they passed a sward of green, on which sundry little boys were engaged
upon the lapidation of a lame duck. It seemed that the duck was to have
been taken to market, when it was discovered not only to be lame, but
dyspeptic,--perhaps some weed had disagreed with its ganglionic