in Stephen's Green, Dublin, the
record may be seen entered of the marriage, in 1857, of Surgeon-Major
Charles Bush Hearn, to Alicia (Posy), widow of George John Crawford.

Immediately afterwards, accompanied by his wife, Charles Hearn proceeded
with his regiment to India. His eldest boy he entrusted to the care of
Mrs. Justin Brenane, who promised to leave him her money, on condition
that she was allowed to bring him up in the Roman Catholic faith.

Neither Mrs. Brenane nor Charles Hearn reckoned with the spirit that was
housed in the boy's frail body, nor the fiery independence of mind that
made him cast off all ecclesiastical rule and declare himself, as a boy
at college, a Pantheist and Free Thinker, thus playing into the hands of
those who for purposes of their own sought to alienate him from his
grand-aunt.

Daniel James, the second boy, was ultimately sent to his Uncle Richard
in Paris.

Of his father, Lafcadio retained but a faint memory. In an article
written upon Lafcadio after his death, Mr. Tunison, his Cincinnati
friend, says he used often to refer to a "blonde lady," who had wrecked
his childhood, and been the means of separating him from his mother. His
father used to write to him from India, he tells Mrs. Atkinson,
"printing every letter with the pen, so that I could read it. I remember
he told me something about a tiger getting into his room. I never wrote
to him, I think Auntie used to say something like this: 'I do not forbid
you to write to your father, child,' but she did not look as though she
wished me to, and I was lazy."

Lafcadio and his father never met again, for on November 21st, 1866, on
his return journey to England, Surgeon-Major Charles Bush Hearn died of
Indian fever, on board the English steamship _Mula_ at Suez, thus ending
a distinguished career, and a military service of twenty-four years.

With the separation of his parents, Lafcadio's childhood came to an end.
We now have to follow the development of this strange, undisciplined
nature, through boyhood into manhood, and ultimately to fame,
remembering always that henceforth he was unprotected by a father's
advice or care, unsoothed by a mother's tenderness--that tenderness
generally most freely bestowed on those least likely to conquer in the
arena of life.

CHAPTER II
BOYHOOD

"You speak about that feeling of fulness of the heart with
which we