uld experience upon finding that we had
indeed been reserved for a position of such distinction. We were as yet
mere children, and naturally took all for granted that our mother told
us; we therefore made a careful examination of the passage which threw
light upon our future. On finding that the prospect was gloomy and full
of bloodshed we protested against the honours which were intended for us,
more especially when we reflected that the mother of the two witnesses
was not menaced in Scripture with any particular discomfort. If we were
to be martyrs, my mother ought to wish to be a martyr too, whereas
nothing was farther from her intention. Her notion clearly was that we
were to be massacred somewhere in the streets of London, in consequence
of the anti-Christian machinations of the Pope; that after lying about
unburied for three days and a half we were to come to life again; and
finally, that we should conspicuously ascend to heaven, in front,
perhaps, of the Foundling Hospital.

She was not herself indeed to share either our martyrdom or our
glorification, but was to survive us many years on earth, living in an
odour of great sanctity and reflected splendour, as the central and most
august figure in a select society. She would perhaps be able indirectly,
through her sons' influence with the Almighty, to have a voice in most of
the arrangements both of this world and of the next. If all this were to
come true (and things seemed very like it), those friends who had
neglected us in our adversity would not find it too easy to be restored
to favour, however greatly they might desire it--that is to say, they
would not have found it too easy in the case of one less magnanimous and
spiritually-minded than herself. My mother said but little of the above
directly, but the fragments which occasionally escaped her were pregnant,
and on looking back it is easy to perceive that she must have been
building one of the most stupendous aerial fabrics that have ever been
reared.

I have given the above in its more amusing aspect, and am half afraid
that I may appear to be making a jest of weakness on the part of one of
the most devotedly unselfish mothers who have ever existed. But one can
love while smiling, and the very wildness of my mother's dream serves to
show how entirely her whole soul was occupied with the things which are
above. To her, religion was all in all; the earth was but a place of
pilgrimage--only so far im