in twos and threes, some of the Poor Brothers whom Ethel had seen in their long, black gowns, most of them bareheaded, for it was June, and the sun had come out for a brief spell. Here he paused.

he,

"Before I show you Colonel Newcome's room" too, I saw, had fallen into the habit of mixing his personalities "I want you to see our great Hall - Guesten Hall. I have brought the keys, for this part of Charter House is not shown except in special cases." He fitted a great key into a massive lock, and pushed in the door, revealing a spacious panelled room, with high ceiling, huge fireplace, and carved screen shortening one end of its bigness. "Now, step a little closer and put your two feet on that plank. There, sir! That is the exact spot on which Mr. Thackeray once stood when he emptied his pocket of its shillings. I was away over by the fireplace, and I edged as close as I dared, but he didn't see me. What, sir, would you give to-day for a shilling that Colonel Newcome had given you? I was a Cistercian, you know, and whenever Mr. Thackeray came to visit us he always had his pocket full of shillings. When there was not enough he would borrow from anybody about him once he had not a single sixpence left, and had to walk home.

"We always called him 'Colonel' whenever he came, just as they used to call Captain Thomas Light, who was really the original Colonel Newcome, after his namesake. Yes, you shall see the very room and go inside, if old Brother Bridger, who occupies it, will let you see it, for he, too, is a lover of Thackeray, and once he knows you want to make sketches you won't have a bit of trouble."

་

The keys were jangling together again. This time one more modest was selected.

"Now, step in isn't that a grand banquet hall? Here is where the Brothers take their meals, breakfast, dinner, and supper, and in this chair," and he pulled it out, "is where Mr. Thackeray stood the last time I saw him. He had come on Founders' Day to make a speech, and I can see him now as he pushed back his chair and stood facing the Brothers who stood up in his honour, and I can almost hear the tones of his voice; and that, my dear sir, was the last time I saw him alive, for he died within the year. And now, if you will excuse me, for it is one of my busy days, I'll show you the outside of the Colonel's rooms, and the doorway with the tablet bearing Mr. Thackeray's name, and the tablet bearing Captain Thomas Light's name. There! Stoop down and read it - the vines grow rather thick. And now, sketch away to your heart's content and make yourself quite at home, and if you get into trouble of any kind please come to me.'

Thus it was that I opened my easel under the window of the very room which I had come three thousand miles to see; and, just here, I want to say to my readers that in attempting to convey to them something of the charm, and more particularly something of the reality, of these homes and haunts of Mr. Thackeray and his characters, I mean to rely more upon my illustrations than upon my text, avoiding, as best I can, unnecessary, and, perhaps, misleading descriptions.

That the sight of a man plumped down in the middle of the main path, the most of him on a three-legged stool, the

whole of him working away like mad, his fingers smudged with charcoal, was not an everyday spectacle, became instantly apparent. Every Poor Brother, strolling aimlessly about, wheeled and bore down upon me.

"I'm an artist myself," offered an old fellow who must have been eighty (if he were a day). “That's a fine medium, that charcoal, if you don't try to do too much with it we boys used to use it at the academy."

The others kept silent, watching me closely, and nodding their heads as I explained my methods of work.

"May I ask you where you come from?" whispered another pensioner, loosening his long black cloak as he stooped to get my answer-a retired naval officer I learned afterward.

"What! An American!" he cried, starting back. "Why, you don't talk like an American."

"Neither do you speak like a Welshman, nor a Scotchman, nor a London Cockney. We have as many dialects as you, I suggested in answer, my voice raised as I glanced toward the others, "and yet we are all Englishmen."

"Yes, all Englishmen; yes, that's true-all Englishmen," he kept repeating, as if the idea were entirely novel to him; and so the chatter went on, the crowd getting thicker all the time, the chapel service now being over, some remaining standing until my sketch was finished; others, the older and more tired or feeble, going into their rooms they all lived in a row of small houses, each one with a window and a door opening on the court for chairs and stools on which to rest.

I had, without my knowing it, been a godsend to a group