died at my birth, or shortly after, and I had grown up in the gravity and silence of a house without women.  In my infancy, I believe, a sister of my father’s had lived with us, and taken charge of the household and of me; but she, too, had died long, long ago, my mourning for her being one of the first things I could recollect.  And she had no successor.  There were, indeed, a housekeeper and some maids,—­the latter of whom I only saw disappearing at the end of a passage, or whisking out of a room when one of “the gentlemen” appeared.  Mrs. Weir, indeed, I saw nearly every day; but a curtsey, a smile, a pair of nice round arms which she caressed while folding them across her ample waist, and a large white apron, were all I knew of her.  This was the only female influence in the house.  The drawing-room I was aware of only as a place of deadly good order, into which nobody ever entered.  It had three long windows opening on the lawn, and communicated at the upper end, which was rounded like a great bay, with the conservatory.  Sometimes I gazed into it as a child from without, wondering at the needlework on the chairs, the screens, the looking-glasses which never reflected any living face.  My father did not like the room, which probably was not wonderful, though it never occurred to me in those early days to inquire why.

I may say here, though it will probably be disappointing to those who form a sentimental idea of the capabilities of children, that it did not occur to me either, in these early days, to make any inquiry about my mother.  There was no room in life, as I knew it, for any such person; nothing suggested to my mind either the fact that she must have existed, or that there was need of her in the house.  I accepted, as I believe most children do, the facts of existence, on the basis with which I had first made acquaintance with them, without question or remark.  As a matter of fact, I was aware that it was rather dull at home; but neither by comparison with the books I read, nor by the communications received from my school-fellows, did this seem to me anything remarkable.  And I was possibly somewhat dull too by nature, for I did not mind.  I was fond of reading, and for that there was unbounded opportunity.  I had a little ambition in respect to work, and that too could be prosecuted undisturbed.  When I went to the university, my society lay almost entirely among men; but by that time and afterwards, matters had of course greatly changed with me, and though I recognized women as part of the economy of nature, and did not indeed by any means dislike or avoid them, yet the idea of connecting them at all with my own home never entered into my head.  That continued to be as it had always been, when at intervals I descended upon the cool, grave, colorless place, in the midst of my traffic with the world:  always very still, well-ordered, serious,—­the cooking very good, the comfort perfect; old Morphew, the butler, a little older (but very little older, perhaps on