d in her a strong strain of Celtic superstition, and
thoroughly believed that this "vision"--a most natural dream under the
circumstances--was a direct "warning", and that her husband had come to
her to tell her of her approaching loss. This belief was, in her eyes,
thoroughly justified by the little fellow's death in the following March,
calling to the end for "Papa! papa!" My brother and I were allowed to see
him just before he was placed in his coffin; I can see him still, so
white and beautiful, with a black spot in the middle of the fair waxen
forehead, and I remember the deadly cold which startled me when I was
told to kiss my little brother. It was the first time that I had touched
Death. That black spot made a curious impression on me, and long
afterwards, asking what had caused it, I was told that at the moment
after his death my mother had passionately kissed the baby brow. Pathetic
thought, that the mother's kiss of farewell should have been marked by
the first sign of corruption on the child's face.

And now began my mother's time of struggle and of anxiety. Hitherto,
since her marriage, she had known no money troubles, for her husband was
earning a good income; he was apparently vigorous and well: no thought of
anxiety clouded their future. When he died, he believed that he left his
wife and children safe, at least, from pecuniary distress. It was not so.
I know nothing of the details, but the outcome of all was that nothing
was left for the widow and children, save a trifle of ready money. The
resolve to which, my mother came was characteristic. Two of her husband's
relatives, Western and Sir William Wood, offered to educate her son at a
good city school, and to start him in commercial life, using their great
city influence to push him forward. But the young lad's father and mother
had talked of a different future for their eldest boy; he was to go to a
public school, and then to the University, and was to enter one of the
"learned professions"--to take orders, the mother wished; to go to the
Bar, the father hoped. On his death-bed there was nothing more earnestly
urged by my father than that Harry should receive the best possible
education, and the widow was resolute to fulfil that last wish. In her
eyes, a city school was not "the best possible education", and the Irish
pride rebelled against the idea of her son not being "a University man".
Many were the lectures poured out on the young widow's head about