A listener (had there been one) might have heard me, after ten minutes' silent gazing, utter the word "Mother!" I might have said more--but with me, the first word uttered aloud in soliloquy rouses consciousness; it reminds me that only crazy people talk to themselves, and then I think out my monologue, instead of speaking it.
I had thought a long while, and a long while had contemplated the intelligence, the sweetness, and--alas! the sadness also of those fine, grey eyes, the mental power of that forehead, and the rare sensibility of that serious mouth, when my glance, travelling downwards, fell on a narrow billet, stuck in the corner of the picture, between the frame and the canvas.

Then I first asked, "Who sent this picture?
Who thought of me, saved it out of the wreck of Crimsworth Hall, and now commits it to the care of its natural keeper ?" I took the note from its niche; thus it spoke:-- "There is a sort of stupid pleasure in giving a child sweets, a fool his bells, a dog a bone.

You are repaid by seeing the child besmear his face with sugar; by witnessing how the fool's ecstasy makes a greater fool of him than ever; by watching the dog's nature come out over his bone.
In giving William Crimsworth his mother's picture, I give him sweets, bells, and bone all in one; what grieves me is, that I cannot behold the result; I would have added five shillings more to my bid if the auctioneer could only have promised me that pleasure.
"H.

Y.H.
"P.S .-- You said last night you positively declined adding another item to your account with me; don't you think I've saved you that trouble ?" I muffled the picture in its green baize covering, restored it to the case, and having transported the whole concern to my bed-room, put it out of sight under my bed.

My pleasure was now poisoned by pungent pain; I determined to look no more till I could look at my ease.