a fire,
lighting it only a little before his home-coming, so that she might save
all the expense she could; often and often she would go out about
half-past twelve, saying that she was going out to lunch, and would walk
about till late in the afternoon, so as to avoid the lunch-hour at home.
I have always felt that the winter of 1870-1 killed her, though she lived
on for three years longer; it made her an old broken woman, and crushed
her brave spirit. How often I have thought since: "If only I had not left
her! I should have seen she was suffering, and should have saved her."
One little chance help I gave her, on a brief visit to town. She was
looking very ill, and I coaxed out of her that her back was always
aching, and that she never had a moment free from pain. Luckily I had
that morning received a letter containing L2 2s. from my liberal _Family
Herald_ editor, and as, glancing round the room, I saw there were only
ordinary chairs, I disregarded all questions as to the legal ownership of
the money, and marched out without saying a word, and bought for L1 15s.
a nice cushiony chair, just like one she used to have at Harrow, and had
it sent home to her. For a moment she was distressed, but I told her I
had earned the money, and so she was satisfied. "Oh, the rest!" she said
softly once or twice during the evening. I have that chair still, and
mean to keep it as long as I live.

In the spring of 1871 both my children were taken ill with hooping-cough.
The boy, Digby, vigorous and merry, fought his way through it with no
danger, and with comparatively little suffering; Mabel, the baby, had
been delicate since her birth; there had been some little difficulty in
getting her to breathe after she was born, and a slight tendency
afterwards to lung-delicacy. She was very young for so trying a disease
as hooping-cough, and after a while bronchitis set in, and was followed
by congestion of the lungs. For weeks she lay in hourly peril of death;
we arranged a screen round the fire like a tent, and kept it full of
steam to ease the panting breath, and there I sat all through those weary
weeks with her on my lap, day and night. The doctor said that recovery
was impossible, and that in one of the fits of coughing she must die; the
most distressing thing was that at last the giving of a drop or two of
milk brought on the terrible convulsive choking, and it seemed cruel to
torture the apparently dying child. At length, one morning wh