The same fireplace, too, "with a brisk fire crackling on the hearth; a little tea table laid out, a Bible and spectacles by the side of it, and over the mantelpiece a drawing —” all just as Ethel saw it. "She looked at the pictures of Clive and his boy; the two sabres crossed over the mantelpiece, the Bible laid on the table, by the old latticed window. She walked slowly up to the humble bed, and sat down on a chair near it. No doubt her heart prayed for him who slept there; she turned round where his black Pensioner's cloak was hanging on the wall, and lifted up the homely garment, and kissed it.”

I had all this in my mind as I made a careful inventory of the appointments and furniture. Yes! Everything was the same, except the two sabres, and, perhaps, even these were tucked away in the corner by the big wardrobe in the little bedroom beyond; and Clive's portrait, which may also have been spirited away, and some of the earlier Bridgers put in its place.

But the queer easy chair was there, and so was the Pensioner's old black cloak, and on the same hook, no doubt, there by the washstand. That she had lifted up the homely garment and kissed it was easy to understand. I confess I felt something like that myself, as the spell of the place took possession of me. Soon the pictures I loved were flashed on my memory - not only the one I had seen in the Library when a boy, but the many others with which the master has enriched our lives. Clearest of all, because dearest, shone the tall, slim man with the pale, sad face, who, in this very room, had answered, "Adsum.”

As I worked on I relived that scene of his closing hours,

the friends who had been with him stealing into the room, and grouping themselves around me.

"Bayham opened the door

me with a finger on his lip, and a sad, sad countenance. He closed the door gently behind him, and led me into the court. 'Clive is with him, and Miss Newcome. He is very ill. He does not know them,' said Bayham, with a sob. 'He calls out for both of them: they are sitting there, and he does not know them.'

"Sometime afterward Ethel came in with a scared face to our pale group. 'He is calling for you again, dear lady,' she said, going up to Mme. de Florac, who was still kneeling; 'and just now he said he wanted Pendennis to take care of his boy. He will not know you.' She hid her tears as she spoke.

"She went into the room where Clive was at the bed's foot; the old man within it talked on rapidly for a while; then again he would sigh, and be still; once more I heard him say hurriedly, 'Take care of him when I'm in India;' and then with a heartrending voice he called out, 'Leonore, Leonore.' She was kneeling by his side now. The patient's voice sank into faint murmurs; only a moan now and then announced that he was not asleep.

"At the usual evening hour the chapel bell began to toll, and Thomas Newcome's hands outside the bed feebly beat time. And just as the last bell struck a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said, 'Adsum!' and fell back. It was the word we used at school, and when names were called: and lo! he, whose heart was as that of a little child, had an

swered to his name, and stood in the presence of the Master."

The silence became profound; broken only by the scratching of my coal on my canvas — a weird, uncanny stillness - the kind that a child fears when shut up alone in a bare room. Now and then I caught myself listening for the toll of the chapel bell; more than once I craned my head in the effort to see around the jamb of the wide dividing door hiding the bed on which he breathed his last.

About four o'clock there came a loud knock. I had the 'story of the jam all ready for the tall, hungry nephew, but it was only the postman who left a newspaper addressed to the Reverend Wm. I. Bridger the first time I had learned his full name. This I laid on a chair instead of on the desk, I being at the moment busy with its outlines, and there being enough of detail already on its capacious top.

At half-past four there came another knock. This time it was my host, who cried in a voice that put my ghosts to flight, "So glad you stayed — anybody been here? Oh, yes, the postman," and he picked up the wrapper. He had espied it on its chair halfway across the room. "Small place, you see, and I get to know every little thing in it, as a prisoner does in a cell. It's my world, you understand. Now we'll have tea."

He went out and came back with a china pot and a plate of oatmeal, and I was once more in the world of to-day.

"We'll have it on this desk. Do you know Mr. Thackeray wrote the last chapters of 'The Newcomes' on this very desk? You remember he had a way of cramming his manuscript

in his pocket, and writing anywhere he happened to beat his club, or in some hotel abroad" (I had always believed that the novel was finished in Paris, and was glad to be set right), "and so it is quite reasonable to suppose that as he spent a good many days in this very room with his friend Captain Light, he should have brought his manuscript along with him. The original, you know, is now in the new Charter House Library at Godalming. The Head Master will have it shown to you with pleasure; and, by the by, if you don't mind listening a moment, I have somewhere in my own handwriting an account of these visits of Thackeray to Captain Thomas Light, which I compiled from various sources, and which I will first read and then give you. Oh, here it is," and he reached for a bundle of papers in a drawer under the teapot, and wheeling his chair closer to the light of the window, cleared his throat and began as follows:

666

'For Col. Newcome the most memorable character in the story there have been many prototypes suggested; in him, we may take it, Thackeray wished to portray a typical simple gentleman, & for this purpose, made up a "composite" portrait, of which many notable features seem to have been supplied by the character of the Author's stepfather, Major Carmichael Smythe. I knew also Captain Light, an old officer of fine profile, & grand "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 Hos

pital (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 him — and 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.'