dren, and who treated me
in their presence as though I were a dangerous animal from whom they were
to be protected. To give but an instance of the sort of treatment I
received, I wished Mabel to have the benefit of sea-bathing, and was told
that she could not be allowed to bathe with me, and this with a
suggestiveness that sorely taxed my self-control. I could not apply to
the Court against the ingenious forms of petty insult employed, while I
felt that they must inevitably estrange the children from me if practised
always in their presence. After a vain appeal that some sort of
consideration should be shown to me, an appeal answered by a mocking
suggestion that I should complain to the Master of the Rolls, I made up
my mind as to my future course. I resolved neither to see nor to write to
my children until they were old enough to understand and to judge for
themselves, and I know that I shall win my daughter back in her
womanhood, though I have been robbed of her childhood. By effacing myself
then, I saved her from a constant and painful struggle unfitted for
childhood's passionate feelings, and left her only a memory that she
loves, undefaced by painful remembrances of her mother insulted in her
presence.

Unhappily Sir George Jessel has terribly handicapped her future; left to
me she would have had the highest education now open to girls; left to
her present guardian she receives only fifth-rate teaching, utterly
unfitted for the present day. Twice I have offered to bear the whole
expense of her education in the High School at Cheltenham, or in some
London College, without in any way appearing in the matter, but each time
my offer has been roughly and insultingly refused, and the influence that
marred the mother's life is undermining the future happiness of the
child's. But I am not without hope that I may be able to obtain from the
Court of Chancery an order for the benefit of its ward, and I trust
before very long that I shall be able to insure to my child an education
which will fit her to play her part worthily when she reaches womanhood.
I had hoped to save her from the pain of rejecting a superstitious faith,
but that is now impossible, and she must fight her way out of darkness
into light as her mother did before her. But in order that she may do so,
education now is of vital importance, and that I am striving to obtain
for her. I live in the hope that in her womanhood she may return to the
home she was torn f