Round the Red Lamp

omes between, to steal time for one little daily breath of cleanly air. To win it he must slip early from his bed and

and even the most common thing takes an ever-recurring freshness, as though causeway, and lamp, and signboard had

little hillock of white and no hull, with topsails curved like a bodice, so stately and demure. But most of all I loved it when no trace of man marred the majesty of Nature, and when the sun-bursts slanted down on it from between the drifting rainclouds. Then I have seen the further edge draped in the gauze of the driving rain, with its thin grey shading under the slow clouds, while my headl

nd fine presence, with something of distinction in the set of his lip and the poise of his head. He limped up the winding path leaning heavily upon his stick, as though those great shoulders ha

eaking as a physician, I should say that you wo

haven face shot with its mesh of wrinkles. Those eyes, ere they had grown dim, had looked out from the box-seat of mail coaches, and had seen the knots of navvies as they toiled on the brown embankments. Those lips had smiled over the first numbers of "Pickwick," and had gossiped of the promising young man who wrote them. The face itself was a seventy-year almanack, and every seam an entry upon it where public as well as

not help observing that it was in a woman's hand. When he had finished it he read it again, and then sat with the corners of his mouth drawn down and his eyes staring vacantly out over the bay, the most forlorn-looking old gentleman that e

nd all for the worse. The face seemed more heavy and more wrinkled, while that ominous venous tinge was more pronounced as he panted up the hill. The clean lines of his cheek and chin were marred by a day's growth of grey stubble, and his large, shapely head had lost something of the brave carriage which had struck me when first I glanced at him. He had

at the same hour, I saw him coming up the hill; but very slowly, with a bent back

does not agree with you, s

s fine old fellow wasting away before my eyes. There was the eternal letter which he unfolded with his shaking fingers. Who was this woman whose words moved him so? Some daughter, perhaps, or granddaughter, who should have been the light of his home instead of-- I smiled

d hat, and the shining stock, and the horn glasses, but where were the stoop and the grey-stubbled, pitiable face? He was clean-shaven and firm lipped, with a bright eye and a head that poised itself upon his great shoulders like an eagle on a rock. His back was as straight and square as a grenadier's, and he switche

morning!" he cried with a

wered, "how beautiful

ould have seen it jus

you been her

ere was scarce ligh

a very ea

s if to gauge whether I were worthy of his confidence. "Th

ve given him assurance of sympathy, for he moved quite close to me and began speaking in a low, confident

a married

I am

nd I have been married for nearly fifty years, and

or long?"

tand, and the doctors would not let me go. Not that I would have allowed them to stop me,

er

to tell the truth, very congenial, and we have, little privacy among them. That is why we prefer to meet here. I coul

ase--" sai

that you will stay. It does not we

e cont

Ah, what a nightmare it has been! Perhaps it may seem stran

s cha

had the good fortune to be married to such a woman. Perhaps, because you see me like

d his eyes twinkled at

uter, perhaps, but then, if she had a fault as a girl, it was that she was a shade too slender. She was above me in station, you know-I a clerk, and she the daughter of my employer. Oh! it was quite a romance, I

woodwork, and his feet shuffling on the gravel. I saw what it was. He was trying to rise, but was so excited that he could not. I half extended my han

ain. The person upon whom I looked was tall, it is true, but she was thick and shapeless, with a ruddy, full-blown face, and a skirt grotesquely gathered up. There was a green ribbon in her hat, which jarred upon m

ye, I saw that he put out both his hands, while she, shrinking from a public caress, took one of them in hers and shook it. As she did so I saw her face, and I