Recollections of George John Cayley 



following him out of the world. When all who knew him 

 are gone, what memory will survive of his charm, powerful 

 and evanescent, what shadow of the substance that once 

 was he ? 



The writer of these lines has been asked to put into a few 

 words her recollections of him as he was in long past days. 

 Such recollections tend rather to visualise than to become 

 articulate. They are intangible, they come and go, they 

 evoke a sigh or a smile, and behold ! they have taken 

 another shape or have vanished ! 



There must still be some who knew him in other aspects 

 than were familiar to the three sisters who, so long ago, 

 were his young neighbours in Algiers, one of whom now 

 endeavours to record — however faintly — the vivid mental 

 vision they all three retain of him. 



The three sisters were in Algiers one winter and spring, 

 m a house in the Village d'Isly at the end of the Ravines. 

 Close by, gardens and walls, gates and lane between, was an 

 almost empty house awaiting the wandering occupants of 

 its vacant rooms. One day the first comers were idling on 

 their verandah, when up the garden walk came a little 

 girl — the blue Mediterranean was background to the small 

 figure in white pinafore and hat with daisies round the 

 crown ; in both arms, very tightly, she clasped an empty 

 wine bottle. Demurely she came towards the strangers, 

 her eyes fixed upon them. When she was close to them 

 she held out the bottle and asked to have it filled with 

 fresh water. One of the sisters carried it home for her, and 

 there in the next house was the newly-returned family — 

 Mr. Cayley and his wife, their little son, the tiny daughter. 

 The water supply of one house was as good as that of the 

 other : the little messenger had been despatched on a 

 diplomatic mission to report upon the neighbours. 



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