rent--especially for the reason that
he seized some of my soldiers, and ran away with them immediately. I
followed him; I wrenched the soldiers from him; I beat him and threw him
downstairs; it was quite easy, because he was four years my junior. What
afterwards happened I do not know. I have a confused idea that I was
scolded and punished. But I never saw my brother again."

The following reminiscence requires little comment:--

"I was walking in Dublin with my father. He never laughed, so I was
afraid of him. He bought me cakes. It was a day of sun, with rain clouds
above the roofs, but no rain. I was in petticoats. We walked a long way.
Father stopped at a flight of stone steps before a tall house, and
knocked the knocker, I think. Inside, at the foot of a staircase a lady
came to meet us. She seemed to me tall--but a child cannot judge stature
well except by comparison. What I distinctly remember is that she seemed
to me lovely beyond anything I had ever seen before. She stooped down
and kissed me: I think I can feel the touch of her hand still. Then I
found myself in possession of a toy gun and a picture book she had given
me. On the way home, father bought me some plum cakes, and told me never
to say anything to 'auntie' about our visit. I can't remember whether I
told or not. But 'auntie' found it out. She was so angry that I was
frightened. She confiscated the gun and the picture book, in which I
remember there was a picture of David killing Goliath. Auntie did not
tell me why she was angry for more than ten years after."

The tall lovely lady was Mrs. Crawford, destined later to be Lafcadio's
stepmother. By her first husband she had two daughters. The Hearn and
Crawford children used apparently to meet and play together at this time
in Dublin.

Mrs. Weatherall, one of these daughters, tells me that a more uncanny,
odd-looking little creature than Patricio Lafcadio it would be difficult
to imagine. When first she saw him he was about five years of age. Long,
lanky black hair hung on either side of his face, and his prominent,
myopic eyes gave him a sort of dreamy, absent look. In his arms he
tightly clasped a doll, as if terrified that someone might take it from
him.

"Tell Mrs. Weatherall I cannot remember the pleasant things she tells
of--the one day's happy play with a little girl," he writes from Japan
to Mrs. Atkinson. "I remember a little girl, but it can't have been the
same. I went into the garden.