It must have been the very next winter that my grandmother died.  She had a long illness which I do not remember much about; but the night she died might have been yesterday night, it is all so fresh and clear in my mind.  I did not live with her in the old house then, but in a new house close by, across the yard.  All the family were at the great house, and I could see that lights were carried hurriedly from one room to another.  A servant came to fetch me, but I would not go with her; my grandmother was dying, whatever that might be, and she was taking leave of every one—­she was ceremonious even then.  I did not dare to go with the rest; I had an intense curiosity to see what dying might be like, but I was afraid to be there with her, and I was also afraid to stay at home alone.  I was only five years old.  It was in December, and the sky seemed to grow darker and darker, and I went out at last to sit on a door-step and cry softly to myself, and while I was there some one came to another door next the street, and rang the bell loudly again and again.  I suppose I was afraid to answer the summons—­indeed, I do not know that I thought of it; all the world had been still before, and the bell sounded loud and awful through the empty house.  It seemed as if the messenger from an unknown world had come to the wrong house to call my poor grandmother away; and that loud ringing is curiously linked in my mind with the knocking at the gate in “Macbeth.”  I never can think of one without the other, though there was no fierce Lady Macbeth to bid me not be lost so poorly in my thoughts; for when they all came back awed and tearful, and found me waiting in the cold, alone, and afraid more of this world than the next, they were very good to me.  But as for the funeral, it gave me vast entertainment; it was the first grand public occasion in which I had taken any share.

An October Ride

It was a fine afternoon, just warm enough and just cool enough, and I started off alone on horseback, though I do not know why I should say alone when I find my horse such good company.  She is called Sheila, and she not only gratifies one’s sense of beauty, but is very interesting in her character, while her usefulness in this world is beyond question.  I grow more fond of her every week; we have had so many capital good times together, and I am certain that she is as much pleased as I when we start out for a run.

I do not say to every one that I always pronounce her name in German fashion because she occasionally shies, but that is the truth.  I do not mind her shying, or a certain mysterious and apparently unprovoked jump, with which she sometimes indulges herself, and no one else rides her, so I think she does no harm, but I do not like the principle of allowing her to be wicked, unrebuked and unhindered, and some day I shall give my mind to admonishing this four-footed Princess of Thule, who seems at present to consider herself at the top of royalty in this kingdom or any