Long ago nearly every home in Dockland treasured a lithographic portrait of one of the beauties, framed and hung where visitors could see it as soon as they entered the door.  Each of us knew one of them, her runs and her records, the skipper and his fads, the owner and his prejudice about the last pennyworth of tar.  She was not a transporter to us, an earner of freights, something to which was attached a profit and loss account and an insurance policy.  She had a name.  She was a sentient being, perhaps noble, perhaps wilful; she might have any quality of character, even malice.  I have seen hands laid on her with affection in dock, when those who knew her were telling me of her ways.

To few of the newer homes among the later streets of Dockland is that beautiful lady’s portrait known.  Here and there it survives, part of the flotsam which has drifted through the years with grandmother’s sandalwood chest, the last of the rush-bottomed chairs, and the lacquered tea-caddy.  I well remember a room from which such survivals were saved when the household ship ran on a coffin, and foundered.  It was a front parlour in one of the streets with an Oriental name; which, I cannot be expected to remember, for when last I was in that room I was lifted to sit on one of its horsehair chairs, its seat like a hedgehog, and I was cautioned to sit still.  It was rather a long drop to the floor from a chair for me in those days, and though sitting still was hard, sliding part of the way would have been much worse.  That was a room for holy days, too, a place for good behaviour, and boots profaned it.  Its door was nearly always shut and locked, and only the chance formal visit of respect-worthy strangers brought down its key from the top shelf of the kitchen dresser.  That key was seldom used for relatives, except at Christmas, or when one was dead.  The room was always sombre.  Light filtered into it through curtains of wire gauze, fixed in the window by mahogany frames.  Over the door by which you entered was the picture of an uncle, too young and jolly for that serious position, I thought then, with his careless neckcloth, and his cap pulled down over one eye.  The gilt moulding was gone from a corner of the picture—­the only flaw in the prim apartment—­for once that portrait fell to the floor, and on the very day, it was guessed, that his ship must have foundered.

A round table set on a central thick leg having a three-clawed foot was in that chamber, covered with a cloth on which was worked a picture from the story of Ruth.  But only puzzling bits of the latter were to be seen, for on the circumference of the table-cover were books, placed at precise distances apart, and in the centre was a huge Bible, with a brass clasp.  With many others my name was in the Bible, and my birthday, and a space left blank for the day of my death.  Reflected in the pier-glass which doubled the room were the portraits in oils of my grandparents, looking wonderfully young, as you may have noticed is often the case in people belonging to ancient history, as though, strangely enough, people were the same in those remote days, except that they wore different clothes.