costume was very becoming, particularly to the younger, who was a beautiful child — resembling, it was said, his mother in her youth. There was no change made either in costume or cut of hair until the elder boy must have been nearly thirteen years old, and went to school.

Farringford and our own home were near together. From every point of view Farringford was charming, whether as playground or picture. Of Aldworth, the poet's Surrey home, I will say nothing, because it was built at a later date and my recollections of it are not those of childhood; moreover, it is better known to the public. It has not, and never could have, the charm of Farringford; the simplicity, the mellow tints of age, are wanting to it.

It is in winter-time that I chiefly remember Farringford -the mild Isle of Wight winter, in which flowers bloom in the gardens, and of which boisterous saltsea gales driving the waves up and over the tall chalk cliffs are the severest symptoms. The island home stood usually with doors and windows flung "wide open to the day." They were French windows, mostly, opening on grassy lawns fringed with trees and sweet, old-world flowers, and winding walks losing themselves in bosky dells. The large front door, by which we rarely entered, choosing rather the window of the boys' study, the fine pebbles on the drive, the walled fruit-garden, the farm-how clearly I see them still! Then there was the tree planted by Garibaldi when he visited Mr. Tennyson; and well do I remember the picture published in the Illustrated London News of that date, and how much it amused and delighted us. There stood the whole family at the house door, in the act of receiving the Italian patriot. Every detail of dress and so forth was correct, but the faces-oh! the faces. That picture seemed to us children one

of the funniest things we had ever seen.

Over the lane at the back of the grounds a rustic bridge had been built, in order that the poet might pass undisturbed to his fields and woods beyond, and in which I believe many of his poems were thought out. In that sacred locality we had many a fine game of "Knights." This was one of our favorite games, in which each child always took the same character; we were, of course, King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table. There we tilted, and held jousts, and stormed castles- a queer kind of summer-house, with small squares of stained glass for windows, doing duty for the latter. From this portion of the grounds— Maiden's Croft, as it was called there was a fine view of the downs, whereon the poet loved to walk with some chosen friends—my father, very often. I remember being told that the only notice Mr. Tennyson ever received of a visit from the Queen was the sudden appearance of one of her outriders speeding over those downs from Osborne. This apparition meant that Her Majesty was following hard in his wake.

The house at Farringford was large and rambling-big rooms and little rooms, many of them connecting wide halls and narrow passages and all kinds Such a house for hide-and-seek I never saw.

of unexpected nooks and corners.

Best of all, there was a Secret Passage. You observe I write it in capitals, because to me in particular it was so wonderful and mysterious, and I wasted so much time in idle dreams about it. Every now and again we would make up our minds to explore it. We had to take down a picture from the wall, and find the hidden spring which would cause a small door to fly open. Then we would all enter solemnly, one by one, the foremost carrying a light. But we never found any outlet; probably because it had long been walled up. Many old English houses have secret passages and rooms, which were much used by hunted people in the times when England was constantly quarreling with herself.

I think those boys must have had a happy childhood, and I am sure they had a gentle and tender rearing. Rules there were, and strictly observed, too, but I can recall no severity. Even in those early days they were unselfish and were considerate of their mother's delicate health, and their father's wishes and peculiarities. For to declare that the poet had no peculiarities would be, of course, absurd. Genius is allowed privileges of life and behavior which are not allowed to other men. It is natural, therefore, that a great man should acquire peculiarities—especially if for a number of years he shuts himself away from his crowding, struggling fellow-creatures, and the few who are near him think of little else but to save him from real or imaginary annoyances.

The boys were fond of animals, and had dogs and ponies. But their ponies, we firmly believed, were not as delightful as ours. They had toys and books, however, better than any we ever possessed, and these they shared with us so unselfishly that we really got as much good out of them as they did. I remember in particular a large rocking-horse which would carry three children at once. How could he do that? Why, one child would ride him and restrain his prancings, and the other two were passengers, and were accommodated with seats at each end of the rocker. It was like a luxurious seesaw, only less agitating and decidedly more sociable.

I try in vain to recall the poet's library. Wherever it was, you may be sure it was far removed from the scene of our games. We usually played upstairs when indoors. The boys had a beautiful big day-nursery. On the round table in the center of the room, in front of the blazing fire — we had a "guard" before it we used to play "knights" with tin soldiers. I can see Sir Lancelot now, in a cocked hat, and riding a gallant gray to whom the course of events had bestowed a "bob-tail" instead of the flowing one he once possessed. Dearly we loved our tin Sir Lancelot.

When we were on the Island, almost every evening was spent at Farringford. My parents would walk across the fields and enter the grounds by the side-gate, and the house by the study-window, in a perfectly informal manner. Sometimes they came before dinner, sometimes after. In any case, we children were there too—either having tea with the boys in the nursery, or going there after our own meal at home. Mr. and Mrs. Tennyson always dined in a kind of ante

room, between the large drawing-room and the boys' study, and when my parents, or others of the favored few, were with them, they did not abandon this cosey and home-like apartment. When the meal was over, the party always retired to the drawing-room, where fruit, wine and sweet biscuits were set out on a table by the fire; arm-chairs and Mrs. Tennyson's sofa were drawn close; and when the whole was shut in by a screen, and presided over by a cloud from the poet's favorite pipe, it looked very sacred ground indeed. Across its borders we children seldom intruded. It is true that after the ravages in hair and clothes, brought about by our wild upstairs romps, had been set to rights, we all descended and partook of fruit and cakes on its extreme verge; but the feast over we quickly retired to the ante-room, where we told stories in hushed voices. This habit was kept up long after we had passed nursery bounds. The hushed atmosphere in which the poet and his wife always dwelt, the continued dread of being the disturbing element therein, produced naturally enough an exaggerated sense of repression on the childish mind; and greatly as we admired the poet's works-knowing most of them, in fact, by heart-I can recall but few instances of those little personal kindlinesses which children appreciate so keenly when offered by those whose intellectual powers they reverence.

Much as the poet disliked noise, he would occasionally appear in the anteroom doorway, and call for music. This meant that one of his sons should beat upon the piano, and we should all shout "Auld Lang Syne" and some others of his favorite ditties- generally Scottish airs—at the full pitch of our lungs. That we were none of us, unless it was his younger son, really musical was of no consequence. The poet enjoyed this entertainment; and so did we. At the close he would be apt to bestow what he called an "osculation" on the girls — an honor detracted from by the odor of tobacco imparted by his ragged beard and moustache. But he said little.

or at

In spite of Mr. Tennyson's morbid dread of disturbance or intrusion, and the effect of which on his manners and expression has led to such severe criticism, there were certain people who had the entrée to his house and seemed to be welcome there. Among these was a lady, a neighbor, well known partly by reason of her passion for photography. If my memory serves me right, she was in the habit of taking the poet's likeness whenever she felt so disposedall events very often and excellent likenesses some of these are. She was an enthusiast, and used to bribe children who she thought had the right kind of faces to sit for her. Cake and jam were her bribes-for such were required the children, indeed, thinking them hardly earned. She liked to pose them in groups to represent scenes from Mr. Tennyson's longer poems. She also had a passion for dramatic art, and built herself a small theater, in which her son, the Tennyson boys and ourselves, once played to a crowded house. But we were no longer children then, so I must stop here and tell no more.

Carroll Burton.

66

W

IN THE

ANTER drinker water!"

66

"PRATUS-BOX."

Patsy Calloran, if you say that another once before recess, I shall shut you in the wood closet!"

Miss Carberry's eyes were very bright, and her cheeks were very pink. Patsy knew that for a bad sign. He turned to the map of Africa and began a terrible buzzing, that was meant to show Miss Carberry how hard he was studying.

Instead of saying over the names, however, he was merely saying "Bz-bz-bz!" like an enormous bumble-bee or an angry blue-bottle fly in a corner of the window-pane.

Miss Carberry didn't like bumble-bees or blue-bottle flies. She walked carelessly up behind Patsy and stopped him suddenly in the midst of a terrible “bz!” that sounded like a whole hive of bumble-bees.

The next minute Patsy found himself tumbled all in a heap into what the boys called the "'Pratus-box." And then the button turned.

The given name of this little dark closet was the "Apparatus-box," and it meant a place in which to keep globes and pointers and chalk and old maps. It was also used sometimes, as you have seen, to put naughty boys in.

Patsy shivered as the button snapped, and he was caged as fast as any bird. “It's dark as a pick-pocket," he muttered, and began to cry and wipe his dirty face on his little ragged sleeve. It was hot, too. Miss Carberry's headache must have been very bad indeed or she never could have done it.

He was getting rather drowsy, and might have gone off to sleep to the tune of "seven-times-five-are-fifty-five," as Lillie Dorr was droning it, when a sudden rustling and shuffling away of books and other litter from the desks made him sit up and listen with both his ears. Somebody was speaking to Miss Carberry, and Miss Carberry was answering in tones wonderfully soft and sugary. "It's the committee-mans," said Patsy to himself. "I'm going to see something!"

So he fumbled somewhere in his rags and produced a penknife. A very good one, too. Patsy could "trade knives" with anybody.

Softly and cautiously, as a little mouse begins to nibble in the closet, Patsy began to bore a little hole in the "'Pratus-box." How much you can see out of one little round hole! Patsy saw two thirds of the schoolroom out of this one, and there was the platform with three old men on it in three old rickety chairs that they'll have to sit very still in, or they'll go smash-bang on the floor," thought Patsy. Two of them had gold-headed canes, and one wore a wig that had slipped a little "unstraight." All this Patsy noted with interest.