that I might shut out the sound of the blows and the cry of the ill-used baby.  All the objects about me were to me alive, the flowers that I kissed as much as the kitten I petted, and I used to have a splendid time “making believe” and living out all sorts of lovely stories among my treasured and so-called inanimate playthings.  But there was a more serious side to this dreamful fancy when it joined hands with religion.

CHAPTER II.

EARLY CHILDHOOD.

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 her “foolish pride,” especially by the female members of the Wood family; and her persistence in her own way caused a considerable alienation between herself and them.  But Western and William, though half-disapproving, remained her friends, and lent many a helping hand to her in her first difficult struggles.  After much cogitation, she resolved that the boy should be educated at Harrow, where the fees are comparatively low to lads living in the town, and that he should go thence to Cambridge or to Oxford, as his tastes should direct.  A bold scheme for a penniless widow, but carried out to the letter; for never dwelt in a delicate body a more resolute mind and will than that of my dear mother.