"frosty pow," who had served Her Majesty & her Royal predecessors, in an infantry regiment, & had lost his sight (so he told us), from the glare of the rock of Gibralter. Blindness had brought him to seek the shelter of Thomas Sutton's Hospital (1), where he lived, with the respect of old & young (2), tended lovingly through all the hours of daylight by his Daughter, Miss Light, who retired to some lodging hard by, when bed-time came.

"To the quarters of this good old gentleman, I led Thackeray, & after knocking, I entered, & remember saying "How do you do, Miss Light? I have brought Mr. Thackeray, the Author, to see you & the Captain"

blushing to the roots of my hair ... Thackeray then sat down & talked, very pleasantly, with the old Captain-ever & anon lapsing into reverie, when the "Colonel" and "Ethel," we may be sure, took their places with himand then rousing himself to talk courteously again. When the fact became known that Col. Newcome was to be a “Codd” (3), & that Thackeray had been making a "study" for his character, it may be that there was a shade of jealousy in Codd-land. My friend Codd Larky (4) told me, that I had taken him to the wrong man; & that he should have gone to

Captain Nicholson, an old Guardsman but I did not know him.'

"And here is another," continued Doctor Bridger, "which I copied from the inscription on the tablet outside:

"In this room lived Captain

Thomas Light whom

Thackeray visited

when writing the last

Chapters of "The Newcomes."

-"From an inscription under my window. "WM. J. B.

"House No. 16; Room No. 70.'

"And here is yet another such pitiful things occur here among our Brothers. Sometimes I write them down and file them away. Perhaps some day they will be found by some of my successors, and add to the history of our home. Listen to this; I will read it if you don't mind:

"Pathetic circumstances attach to the death of Dr. B., one of the Brethren of Charter House, London, which took place on Tuesday evening. For months past Dr., who was over eighty, had been in failing health, but his work in connec

tion with the invention of an electric lamp for mines, on which he had been engaged for many years, had buoyed him up. The ultimate failure of his plans greatly depressed him, and he gradually sank and died in his rooms in Charter House.

"On Saturday he received a letter from the Patent Office, informing him that his application for the taking out of a Patent had been approved, but he remarked, "It is too late."

"No, take it along with you— I make them in hectograph so my friends can each have a copy."

And so, with the oatmeal eaten

there had

been enough for two, the nephew not having put in an appearance and the tea drank, I left my genial host, whose reverence for the Colonel was like my own, promising to come again in the morning when he would show me over Washhouse Court, where the Colonel often walked; through the cloister, where Mr. Thackeray's and John Leech's tablets were to be seen high on the white walls, and into the chapel, where Thackeray prayed as a boy, and where his greatest and best beloved creation prayed both as boy and man.

CHAPTER III

WHERE THE COLONEL WALKED AND

PRAYED

My morning MY

Y guide, the Colonel's brother Pensioner,

was waiting for me the next

when I pushed open his door. He had taken his cloak from its hook, and was slipping it over his shoulders.

"We always wear our gowns when we walk about the courts, but if you do not mind," he added, with a laugh, "I will leave my hat behind. I like to feel the fresh air on my poor scalp," and he tapped the bald spot behind his forehead. "Let us go first through Washhouse Court this way it is only a step, almost opposite where we stand."

While he was speaking we had crossed the gravelled space, dived under a dark archway, and were standing in a small square court that looked like a prison yard, so bare, so desolate, and so unclimbable was it. The scarred, soot

encrusted walls were pock-marked with the maladies of centuries; here and there a small window peered out upon the desolate open, with an uncertain, frightened look; some high, smooth chimneys rose sheer from the ground without a foothold; the roof came down with a sharp slant that, too, was unscalable while the only exit lay under another archway, with an equally narrow entrance. If, in the old days, anybody had been turned loose in this small area, and the doors of both archways locked, they might well have given up the ghost, so far as their ultimate freedom was concerned.

"Why Washhouse Court?" I asked, conceding in my mind the possibility of stringing clotheslines, but in doubt about the tubs.

"Because it is! I have a couple of shirts in there now," and he pointed to a framing of low windows and wooden doors, level with the rough stone pavement. "The linen of our old friend, the Colonel, came here too. We have mangles and all sorts of funny machines now, but in his days it was just plain elbow-grease, knuckles, and plenty of soap. Then it was known as 'Laundry Court,' and, in addition to a washhouse, boasted a brewhouse, a kitchen, bakehouse, and fishhouse. Since then as you