of ways to make him happy." Mrs. Elwood was an elder sister of Charles
Hearn, married to Frank Elwood, owner of a beautiful place, situated on
Lough Corrib in the County Mayo. She was a most delightful and clever
person, beloved by her children and all her family connections,
especially by her aunt, Mrs. Brenane, who was often in the habit of
stopping at the Elwoods' place with her adopted son. We can imagine her
telling the little fellow stories, in the "great hush of the light
before moonrise," and then crooning a weird little song to put him to
sleep. "At last there came a parting day, and she wept and told me of a
charm she had given which I must never, never lose, because it would
keep me young and give me power to return. But I never returned. And the
years went; and one day I knew that I had lost the charm, and had become
ridiculously old."[1]

[1] "Out of the East," Gay & Hancock.

"The last time I saw father was at Tramore," he tells his half-sister,
when retailing further his childish memories; "he had asked leave to see
me. We took a walk by the sea. It was a very hot day; and father had
become bald then; and when he took off his hat I saw that the top of his
head was all covered with little drops of water. He said: 'She is very
angry; she will never forgive me.' 'She' was Auntie. I never saw him
again.

"I have distinct remembrances of my uncle Richard; I remember his big
beard, and a boxwood top he gave me. Auntie was prejudiced against him
by some tale told her about his life in Paris."

* * * * *

The year after his return from the Crimea, Charles and Rosa Hearn's
luckless union was dissolved by mutual consent. Gossip says that after
her departure she married the lawyer (a Jew) who had protected her
interests when she severed her connexion with Ireland; but we have no
proof of this, neither have we proof of the statement made by some
members of the Hearn family, that she returned a year or so later to see
her children but was prevented from doing so. From what we know of Rosa
Hearn, it is far more probable that, in the sunshine amidst the
vineyards and orange-groves of her own southern land, the gloom and
misery of those five years in Dublin was sponged completely from the
tablets of her memory.

After the closing of the chapter of his first unhappy marriage, Charles
Hearn married the lady he had been attached to before he met Rosa
Tessima. At the Registration Office