or seven years before this date he married a lady who was half a Spaniard—­a papist, my father called her.  I can remember her well.  She was small and very pretty, with a rounded figure, large black eyes, and glittering teeth.  She spoke English with a curious accent.  I suppose that I must have been a funny child to look at, and I know that my hair stood up on my head then as it does now, for I still have a sketch of myself that my mother made of me, in which this peculiarity is strongly marked.  On this occasion of the Christmas-tree I remember that Mrs. Carson turned to a tall, foreign-looking gentleman who stood beside her, and, tapping him affectionately on the shoulder with her gold eye-glasses, said—­

“Look, cousin—­look at that droll little boy with the big brown eyes; his hair is like a—­what you call him?—­scrubbing-brush.  Oh, what a droll little boy!”

The tall gentleman pulled at his moustache, and, taking Mrs. Carson’s hand in his, began to smooth my hair down with it till I heard her whisper—­

“Leave go my hand, cousin.  Thomas is looking like—­like the thunderstorm.”

Thomas was the name of Mr. Carson, her husband.

After that I hid myself as well as I could behind a chair, for I was shy, and watched little Stella Carson, who was the squire’s only child, giving the children presents off the tree.  She was dressed as Father Christmas, with some soft white stuff round her lovely little face, and she had large dark eyes, which I thought more beautiful than anything I had ever seen.  At last it came to my turn to receive a present—­oddly enough, considered in the light of future events, it was a large monkey.  Stella reached it down from one of the lower boughs of the tree and handed it to me, saying—­

“Dat is my Christmas present to you, little Allan Quatermain.”

As she did so her sleeve, which was covered with cotton wool, spangled over with something that shone, touched one of the tapers and caught fire—­how I do not know—­and the flame ran up her arm towards her throat.  She stood quite still.  I suppose that she was paralysed with fear; and the ladies who were near screamed very loud, but did nothing.  Then some impulse seized me—­perhaps instinct would be a better word to use, considering my age.  I threw myself upon the child, and, beating at the fire with my hands, mercifully succeeded in extinguishing it before it really got hold.  My wrists were so badly scorched that they had to be wrapped up in wool for a long time afterwards, but with the exception of a single burn upon her throat, little Stella Carson was not much hurt.

This is all that I remember about the Christmas-tree at the Hall.  What happened afterwards is lost to me, but to this day in my sleep I sometimes see little Stella’s sweet face and the stare of terror in her dark eyes as the fire ran up her arm.  This, however, is not wonderful, for I had, humanly speaking, saved the life of her who was destined to be my wife.