Charley was my youngest brother,and he went to India.He married there,and sent his gentle little wife home to me to be confined,and she was to go back to him,and the baby was to be left with me,and I was to bring it up.It never belonged to this life.It took its silent place among the other incidents in my story that might have been,but never were.I had hardly time to whisper to her "Dead my own!"or she to answer,"Ashes to ashes,dust to dust!Olay it on my breast and comfort Charley!"when she had gone to seek her baby at Our Saviour's feet.I went to Charley,and I told him there was nothing left but me,poor me;and I lived with Charley,out there,several years.He was a man of fifty,when he fell asleep in my arms.His face had changed to be almost old and a little stern;but,it softened,and softened when I laid it down that I might cry and pray beside it;and,when I looked at it for the last time,it was my dear,untroubled,handsome,youthful Charley of long ago.
-I was going on to tell that the loneliness of the House to Let brought back all these recollections,and that they had quite pierced my heart one evening,when Flobbins,opening the door,and looking very much as if she wanted to laugh but thought better of it,said:
"Mr.Jabez Jarber,ma'am!"
Upon which Mr.Jarber ambled in,in his usual absurd way,saying:
"Sophonisba!"
Which I am obliged to confess is my name.A pretty one and proper one enough when it was given to me:but,a good many years out of date now,and always sounding particularly high-flown and comical from his lips.So I said,sharply:
"Though it is Sophonisba,Jarber,you are not obliged to mention it,that _I_see."In reply to this observation,the ridiculous man put the tips of my five right-hand fingers to his lips,and said again,with an aggravating accent on the third syllable:
"SophonISba!"
I don't burn lamps,because I can't abide the smell of oil,and wax candles belonged to my day.I hope the convenient situation of one of my tall old candlesticks on the table at my elbow will be my excuse for saying,that if he did that again,I would chop his toes with it.(I am sorry to add that when I told him so,I knew his toes to be tender.)But,really,at my time of life and at Jarber's,it is too much of a good thing.There is an orchestra still standing in the open air at the Wells,before which,in the presence of a throng of fine company,I have walked a minuet with Jarber.But,there is a house still standing,in which I have worn a pinafore,and had a tooth drawn by fastening a thread to the tooth and the door-handle,and toddling away from the door.And how should I look now,at my years,in a pinafore,or having a door for my dentist?
Besides,Jarber always was more or less an absurd man.He was sweetly dressed,and beautifully perfumed,and many girls of my day would have given their ears for him;though I am bound to add that he never cared a fig for them,or their advances either,and that he was very constant to me.For,he not only proposed to me before my love-happiness ended in sorrow,but afterwards too:not once,nor yet twice:nor will we say how many times.However many they were,or however few they were,the last time he paid me that compliment was immediately after he had presented me with a digestive dinner-pill stuck on the point of a pin.And I said on that occasion,laughing heartily,"Now,Jarber,if you don't know that two people whose united ages would make about a hundred and fifty,have got to be old,I do;and I beg to swallow this nonsense in the form of this pill"(which I took on the spot),"and I request to,hear no more of it."After that,he conducted himself pretty well.He was always a little squeezed man,was Jarber,in little sprigged waistcoats;and he had always little legs and a little smile,and a little voice,and little round-about ways.As long as I can remember him he was always going little errands for people,and carrying little gossip.
At this present time when he called me "Sophonisba!"he had a little old-fashioned lodging in that new neighbourhood of mine.I had not seen him for two or three years,but I had heard that he still went out with a little perspective-glass and stood on door-steps in Saint James's Street,to see the nobility go to Court;and went in his little cloak and goloshes outside Willis's rooms to see them go to Almack's;and caught the frightfullest colds,and got himself trodden upon by coachmen and linkmen,until he went home to his landlady a mass of bruises,and had to be nursed for a month.
Jarber took off his little fur-collared cloak,and sat down opposite me,with his little cane and hat in his hand.
"Let us have no more Sophonisbaing,if YOU please,Jarber,"I said.
"Call me Sarah.How do you do?I hope you are pretty well.""Thank you.And you?"said Jarber.
"I am as well as an old woman can expect to be."Jarber was beginning:
"Say,not old,Sophon-"but I looked at the candlestick,and he left off;pretending not to have said anything.
"I am infirm,of course,"I said,"and so are you.Let us both be thankful it's no worse.""Is it possible that you look worried?"said Jarber.
"It is very possible.I have no doubt it is the fact.""And what has worried my Soph-,soft-hearted friend,"said Jarber.
"Something not easy,I suppose,to comprehend.I am worried to death by a House to Let,over the way."Jarber went with his little tip-toe step to the window-curtains,peeped out,and looked round at me.
"Yes,"said I,in answer:"that house."
