The Brighton of my Boyhood 



and said she thanked God she had ahvays 

 made an effort to give her children a good 

 education, although she must say she had 

 certainly thriven very well without one 

 herself. 



My eldest brother William w^as married 

 and lived from home, and between him 

 and Mary there was an interval of many 

 years, during w^hich two children had been 

 born and had died ; so that by the time 

 that I, the youngest of all, came into this 

 world, my father was already past middle 

 age. Mary was my Father's clerk, and the 

 right hand and head-piece of the w^hole 

 house, a presence whose power we scarcely 

 recognised until she once went away for a 

 holiday to France, so quiet and untiring 

 were the foresiorht and devotion w^hich 

 enabled the wheels of life to run so 

 smoothly for us all. She went deep into 

 her books in whatever little leisure her 

 rigorous conscience granted her, and was 

 always pleased to read aloud to us little 

 ones, moving us to orreat wonder and 

 deliorht with the marvellous doingfs of the 

 Lady Britomart, and the Red Cross 

 Knight, and the adventures of Christian, the 

 Pilgrim. She read a ereat deal of P>ench 

 history in its proper tongue with Esther ; 

 but Esther was a pretty light-hearted girl, 

 29 



