of the ablest of the Fenian agents has been for some time operating secretly in the United Kingdom.  He has been traced to Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London.  It is believed at Scotland Yard that he organized these attacks on Volunteer headquarters, arranged for the arms and ammunition to be transferred by a sure hand to Ireland, and has himself returned to Paris.”  A friend of mine who had gone up to London to see a dentist brought back a Globe with him, and, as he handed it to me, he pointed out the passage which I have just cited.  As I read it, my heart gave a jump—­a sudden thrill of delicious excitement.  My friend Mr. Aulif must be the Fenian agent who had organized these raids, and I, who had always dreamed romance, had now been brought into actual contact with it.  The idea of communicating my suspicions to anyone never crossed my mind.  I felt instinctively that this was a case where silence was golden.  Fortunately, none of my school-fellows had seen Mr. Aulif or heard of his visit; and the old caretaker of the drill-shed had been too much gratified by talk and tip to entertain an unworthy thought of “that pleasant-spoken gentleman.”

Soon the story of these raids had been forgotten in the far more exhilarating occurrences at Manchester and Clerkenwell which closed the year; and the execution of Michael Barrett on the 26th of May, 1868 (the last public execution, by the way), brought the history of Fenianism in England to an end.

As I looked back on my journey from Scotland, and my walk round Harrow with Mr. Aulif, I thought that the reason why he did not arrange for our School-armoury to be attacked was that he would not abuse the confidence of a boy who had trusted him.  Perhaps it really was that the rifles were too few and the risks too many.

* * * * *

The year 1870 found me still a Harrow boy, though a tall one; and I spent the Easter holidays with my cousins, the Brentfords, in Paris.  They were a remarkable couple, and if I were to mention their real name, they would be immediately recognized.  They had social position and abundant means and hosts of friends; but, acting under irresistible impulse, they had severed themselves from their natural surroundings, and had plunged into democratic politics.  It was commonly believed that Brentford would not have committed himself so deeply if it had not been for his wife’s influence; and, indeed, she was one of those women whom it is difficult to withstand.  Her enthusiasm was contagious; and when one was in her company one felt that “the Cause,” as she always called it without qualifying epithet, was the one thing worth thinking of and living for.  As a girl, she had caught from Mrs. Browning, and Swinburne, and Jessie White-Mario, and the authoress of Aspromonte, a passionate zeal for Italian unity and freedom; and, when she married, her enthusiasm fired her husband.  They became sworn allies both of Garibaldi and of