doors off. And on the top shelf stood a curious vase, about the size of a rather fat flower-pot, of dark blue and white old Dutch stoneware. I had never noticed it, for in the daytime very little light fell on this corner, and I was seldom in the room except at night.

One evening I was put to bed as usual, feeling rather less frightened, for there were friends dining at the castle, and the sound of the piano came up to my room and cheered me.

 

"Leave the door open, please, I like the music," I said, and nurse did so, and thus with less shivering and heart-throbbing than usual I fell asleep. When I woke—quite suddenly—perhaps the shutting of the great door, or the guests' carriages driving away had wakened me—all was quite dark and silent. I shut my eyes, and tried to go to sleep again. But it was no use. I was quite awake, and unconsciously I opened my eyes. What was that? I have said it was quite dark, but up there, high up, there was a light that I had not seen till I turned my head. And there in the light—or did the light come from it?—was a round, staring, white face grinning down at me. I saw its eyes, its mouth, all its features—it seemed to me the goblin face by which a wicked man in one of old Effie's stories had been haunted. I stared at it like a bird at a serpent, though my heart had stopped from terror—then gradually I saw that it was moving, and that roused me. With a fearful shriek I dashed out of bed,[Pg 40] getting by some instinct to the door, and knew nothing more till an hour or two later I opened my eyes to find myself in mamma's arms, for she was just coming into her room to go to bed when I fell into them!

[Pg 40]

It was all explained to me. There was a tiny window on to the stairs high up in that corner of the room, through which the light of mamma's candle had shone on to the old Delft vase, and even made it seem to move, as she stepped upwards. I was sensible enough for my age to understand and to believe it, but all the same I was ill for a long, long time. And the cloud over my childhood never entirely faded till childhood was left behind. Still good comes with ill. I might never, during the few years she was left with us, have learnt to know my darling mother as I did—her wonderful tenderness and "understandingness"—had it not been for my vision of the "Goblin Face."

The old vase now stands near my bedside, where night and morning I can see it and recall the memories connected with it, and there, I hope, it will stand till I die.

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