One night, when I was just six years old, I lay awake in the
nursery. The door was not quite shut, and the Welsh nurse was
sitting sewing in the next room. Suddenly I heard her groan, and
say in a strange voice, "One--two--one--two!" I was frightened,
and I jumped up and ran to the door, barefooted as I was.
"What is it, Judith?" I cried, clinging to her skirts. I can
remember the look in her strange dark eyes as she answered:
"One--two leaden coffins, fallen from the ceiling!" she crooned,
working herself in her chair. "One--two--a light coffin and a
heavy coffin, falling to the floor!"
Then she seemed to notice me, and she took me back to bed and sang
me to sleep with a queer old Welsh song.
I do not know how it was, but the impression got hold of me that
she had meant that my father and mother were going to die very
soon. They died in the very room where she had been sitting that
night. It was a great room, my day nursery, full of sun when there
was any; and when the days were dark it was the most cheerful place
in the house. My mother grew rapidly worse, and I was transferred
to another part of the building to make place for her.
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