Dick about her determination to appeal for redress to the laws of her country, and to bring actions for trespass against the whole donkey proprietorship of Dover, until tea-time.

After tea we sat at the window—on the look-out, as I imagined, from my aunt’s sharp expression of face, for more jnvaders—until dusk, when Janet set candles, and a backgammon-board, on the table, and pulled down the blinds.

“Now, Mr. Dick,” said my aunt, with her grave look, and her forefinger up as before, “I am going to ask you another question. Look at this child.”

“David’s son?” said Mr. Dick, with an attentive, puzzled face.

“Exactly so,” returned my aunt. “What would you do with him, now?”

“Do with David’s son?” said Mr. Dick.

“Aye,” replied my aunt, “with David’s son.”

“Oh!” said Mr. Dick. “Yes. Do with—I should put him to bed.”

“Janet!” cried my aunt, with the same complacent triumph that I had remarked before. “Mr. Dick sets us all right. If the bed is ready, we’ll take him up to it.”

Janet reporting it to be quite ready, I was taken up to it; kindly, but in some sort like a prisoner; my aunt going in front, and Janet bringing up the rear. The only circumstance which gave me any new hope was my aunt’s stopping on the stairs to inquire about a smell of fire that was prevalent there, and Janet’s replying that she had been making tinder down in the kitchen of my old shirt. But there were no other clothes in my room than the odd heap of things I wore; and when I was left there, with a little taper which my aunt forewarned me would burn exactly five minutes, I heard them lock my door on the outside. Turning these things over in my mind, I deemed it possible that my aunt, who could know nothing of me, might suspect I had a habit of running away, and took precautions, on that account, to have me in safe keeping.

The room was a pleasant one, at the top of the house, overlooking the sea, on which the moon was shining brilliantly. After I had said my prayers, and the candle had burnt out, I remember how I still sat looking at the moonlight on the water, as if I could hope to read my fortune in it, as in a bright book; or to see my mother with her child, coming from heaven, along that shining path, to look upon me as she had looked when I last saw her sweet face. I remember how the solemn feeling with which at length I turned my eyes away, yielded to the sensation of gratitude and rest which the sight of the white-curtained bed—and how much more the lying softly down upon it, nestling in the snow-white sheets!—inspired. I remember how I thought of all the solitary places under the night-sky where I had slept, and how I prayed that I never might be houseless any more, and never might forget the houseless. I remember how I seemed to float, then, down the melancholy glory of that track upon the sea, away into the world of dreams.