If ever there was a time to live in the present this was one; but
never was the present further from me and the past clearer than when I
opened the hall door and stood in the hall paved with grey stones and
painted grey and blue. Three generations had played there; in that
corner I had learned to spin my first top, and I had kept on trying,
showing a perseverance that amazed my father. He said, "If he will
show as much perseverance in other things as he does in the spinning
of a top, he will not fail." He used to catch me trying and trying to
spin that top when he came downstairs on his way to the stables to see
his beloved racehorses; that is the very chair on which he used to put
his hat and gloves. In those days tall hats were worn in the country,
and it was the business of his valet to keep them well brushed. How
the little old man used to watch me, objecting in a way to my spinning
my top in the hall, fearful lest I should overturn the chair on which
the hat stood: sometimes that did happen, and then, oh dear!
In search of some one I opened the drawing-room door. My sister was
there, and I found her on a sofa weeping for our mother, who had died
that morning. We are so constituted that we demand outward signs of
our emotions, especially of grief; we are doubtful of its genuineness
unless it is accompanied by sighs and tears; and that, I suppose, is
why my sister's tears were welcomed by me, for, truth to tell, I was a
little shocked at my own insensibility.
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