usual
difficulties beforehand.

He was nineteen, and she was seventeen. They were my great-grandfather
and great-grandmother.

They had only one child--a son. They were very poor, and yet they gave
him a good education. I ought to say, _she_ gave him, for everything
that needed effort or energy was done by my great-grandmother. The more
it became evident that her Bertrand de Vandaleur was less helpful and
practical than any Bertrand de Vandaleur before him, the more there
seems to have developed in her the purpose and capability inherited from
Mrs. Janet. Like many another poor and ambitious mother, she studied
Latin and Greek and algebra that she might teach her son. And at the
same time she saved, even out of their small income. She began to "put
by" from the boy's birth for his education, and when the time came he
was sent to school.

My grandfather did well. I have heard that he inherited his father's
beauty, and was not without his mother's sense and energy. He had the de
Vandaleur quality of pleasing, with the weakness of being utterly ruled
by the woman he loved. At twenty he married an heiress. His parents had
themselves married too early to have reasonable ground for complaint at
this; but when he left his own Church for that of his wife, there came a
terrible breach between them and their only son. His mother soon
forgave him; but the father was as immovable in his displeasure as weak
people can sometimes be. Happily, however, after the birth of a grandson
peace was made, and the young husband brought his wife to visit his
parents. The heiress had some property in the West Indies, which they
proposed to visit, and they remained with the old people till just
before they sailed. It was as a keepsake at parting that my grandfather
had restored to his mother the watch which she gave to me. The child was
left in England with his mother's relations.

My grandfather and grandmother never returned. They were among the
countless victims of the most cruel of all seas. The vessel they went
out in was lost during a week of storms. On what day or night, and in
what part of the Atlantic, no one survived to tell.

Their orphan child was my dear father.

CHAPTER IX.

HOPES AND EXPECTATIONS--DREAMS AND DAY DREAMS--THE VINE--ELSPETH--MY
GREAT-GRANDFATHER.

My father was brought up chiefly by his mother's relations. The
religious question was always a difficulty as regarded the de
Vandaleurs, and I fancy exte