“Tell us nothing that can cause you any pain, Walter,” said Ernest Travers.

“It caused me very acute pain at the time.  Now it is old history and mercifully one can look back with nothing but regret.  One must, however, mention an incident in my father’s time, though it has nothing to do with my own painful experience.  However, that is part of the story—­if story it can be called.  A death occurred in the Grey Room when I was a child.  Owing to the general vague feeling entertained against it, we never put guests there, and so long ago as my father’s day it was relegated to a store place and lumber-store.  But one Christmas, when we were very full, there came quite unexpectedly on Christmas Eve an aunt of my father—­an extraordinary old character who never did anything that might be foreseen.  She had never come to the family reunion before, yet appeared on this occasion, and declared that, as this was going to be her last Christmas on earth, she had felt it right to join the clan—­my father being the head of the family.  Her sudden advent strained our resources, I suppose, but she herself reminded us of the Grey Room, and, on hearing that it was empty, insisted on occupying it.  The place is a bedroom, and my father, who personally entertained no dislike or dread of it, raised not the least objection to the strong-minded old lady’s proposal.  She retired, and was found dead on Christmas morning.  She had not gone to bed, but was just about to do so, apparently, when she had fallen down and died.  She was eighty-eight, had undergone a lengthy coach journey from Exeter, and had eaten a remarkably good dinner before going to bed.  Her maid was not suspected, and the doctor held her end in no way unusual.  It was certainly never associated with anything but natural causes.  Indeed, only events of much later date served to remind me of the matter.  Then one remembered the spoiled Christmas festivities and the callous and selfish anger of myself and various other young people that our rejoicings should be spoiled and Christmas shorn of all its usual delights.

“But twelve years ago Mary fell ill of pneumonia—­dangerously—­ and a nurse had to be summoned in haste, since her own faithful attendant, Jane Bond, who is still with us, could not attend her both day and night.  A telegram to the Nurses’ Institute brought Mrs. Gilbert Forrester—­’Nurse Forrester,’ as she preferred to be called.  She was a little bit of a thing, but most attractive and capable.  She had been a nurse before she married a young medical man, and upon his unfortunate death she returned to her profession.  She desired her bedroom to be as near the patient as possible, and objected, when she found it arranged at the other end of the corridor.  ‘Why not the next room?’ she inquired; and I had to tell her that the next room suffered from a bad name and was not used.  ‘A bad name—­is it unwholesome?’ she asked; and I explained that traditions credited it with a