re an angel'; which I was disposed to accept
without metaphor. She is now living in Vancouver as Mrs. Robert Kidd."

Mrs. Kidd, then Annie Firmin, was the daughter of a girlhood friend
of Mrs. Chesterton's. She called her "Aunt Marie." She and her
sister, Gilbert says in the _Autobiography_, "had more to do with
enlivening my early years than most." She has a vivid memory of
Sheffield Terrace where all three Chesterton children were born and
where the little sister, Beatrice, whom they called Birdie, died.
Gilbert, in those days, was called Diddie, his father then and later
was "Mr. Ed" to the family and intimate friends. Soon after Birdie's
death they moved to Warwick Gardens. Mrs. Kidd writes:

. . . the little boys were never allowed to see a funeral. If one
passed down Warwick Gardens, they were hustled from the nursery
window at once. Possibly this was because Gilbert had such a fear of
sickness or accident. If Cecil gave the slightest sign of choking at
dinner, Gilbert would throw down his spoon or fork and rush from the
room. I have seen him do it so many times. Cecil was fond of animals.
Gilbert wasn't. Cecil had a cat that he named Faustine, because he
wanted her to be abandoned and wicked--but Faustine turned out to be
a gentleman!

Gilbert's story-telling and verse-making began very early, but not, I
think, in great abundance; his drawing even earlier, and of this
there is a great deal. There is nothing very striking in the written
fragments that remain, but his drawings even at the age of five are
full of vigour. The faces and figures are always rudimentary human
beings, sometimes a good deal more, and they are taken through
lengthy adventures drawn on the backs of bits of wall paper, of
insurance forms, in little books sewn together, or sometimes on long
strips glued end to end by his father. These drawings can often be
dated exactly, for Edward Chesterton, who later kept collections of
press-cuttings and photographs of his son, had already begun to
collect his drawings, writing the date on the back of each. With the
earlier ones he may, one sometimes suspects, have helped a little,
but it soon becomes easy to distinguish between the two styles.

Edward Chesterton was the most perfect father that could have been
imagined to help in the opening of windows on every side. "My father
might have reminded people of Mr. Pickwick, except that he was always
bearded and never bald; he w