Then I remembered that I had never heard the cause or any circumstance of my father’s death, and began to believe that he must at last have followed Mr. Raven, and not come back; whereupon I speedily grew ashamed of my flight. What wondrous² facts might I not by this time have gathered concerning life and death, and wide regions beyond ordinary perception! Assuredly the Ravens³ were good people, and a night in their house would nowise have hurt me! They were doubtless strange, but it was faculty⁴ in which the one was peculiar⁵, and beauty in which the other was marvellous! And I had not believed in them! had treated them as unworthy of my confidence, as harbouring a design against me! The more I thought of my behaviour to them, the more disgusted I became with myself. Why should I have feared such dead? To share their holy rest was an honour of which I had proved myself unworthy! What harm could that sleeping king, that lady with the wound in her palm, have done me? I fell a longing⁶ after the sweet and stately stillness of their two countenances⁷, and wept. Weeping I threw myself on a couch, and suddenly fell asleep.

 

As suddenly I woke, feeling as if some one had called me. The house was still as an empty church. A blackbird was singing on the lawn. I said to myself, “I will go and tell them I am ashamed, and will do whatever they would have me do!” I rose, and went straight up the stairs to the garret.

 

The wooden chamber⁸ was just as when first I saw it, the mirror dimly reflecting everything before it. It was nearly noon, and the sun would be a little higher than when first I came: I must raise the

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