The proprietors were engaged in a lawsuit with each other, and finally one of them threw the whole concern into chancery; and for years that dreary chancery suit seemed to envelop us in an atmosphere of palpitating suspense or stagnant uncertainty, and to enter as an inevitable element into every hope, fear, expectation, resolution, event, or action of our lives.

How unutterably heart-sick I became of the very sound of its name, and how well I remember the expression on my father’s careworn face one day, as he turned back from the door, out of which he was going to his daily drudgery at the theater, to say to my aunt, who had reproached him with the loss of a button from his rather shabby coat, “Ah, Dall, my dear, you see it is my chancery suit!”

Lord Eldon, Sir John Leach, Lord Lyndhurst, and Lord Brougham were the successive chancellors before whom the case was heard; the latter was a friend of my family, and on one occasion my father took me to the House of Lords to hear the proceedings.  We were shown into the chancellor’s room, where he indeed was not, but where his huge official wig was perched upon a block; the temptation was irresistible, and for half a minute I had the awful and ponderous periwig on my pate.

While we were still living in Soho Square our house was robbed; or rather, my father’s writing-desk was broken open, and sixty sovereigns taken from it—­a sum that he could very hardly spare.  He had been at the theater, acting, and my mother had spent the evening at some friend’s house, and the next morning great was the consternation of the family on finding what had happened.  The dining-room sideboard and cellarette had been opened, and wine and glasses put on the table, as if our robbers had drank our good health for the success of their attempt.

A Bow Street officer was sent for; I remember his portly and imposing aspect very well; his name was Salmon, and he was a famous member of his fraternity.  He questioned my mother as to the honesty of our servants; we had but three, a cook, housemaid, and footman, and for all of these my mother answered unhesitatingly; and yet the expert assured her that very few houses were robbed without connivance from within.

The servants were had up and questioned, and the cook related how, coming down first thing in the morning, she had found a certain back scullery window open, and, alarmed by that, had examined the lower rooms, and found the dining-room table set out with the decanters and glasses.  Having heard her story, the officer, as soon as she left the room, asked my mother if any thing else besides the money had been taken, and if any quantity of the wine had been drank.  She said, “No,” and with regard to the last inquiry, she supposed, as the cook had suggested when the decanters were examined, that the thieves had probably been disturbed by some alarm, and had not had time to drink much.