204 Later Years 



VII 



strain which robbed her of all pleasure in life outside 

 the sphere of her home duty and the companionship 

 of books. The only thing that ever tempted her to 

 go about among her neighbours was to assist them 

 when they were sick in mind, body, or estate. So 

 strongly marked a characteristic was this of our 

 early home life, that to this day I always feel I 

 have no right to associate with people unless there 

 is something the matter with them. 



My mother's ill health was the main cause of our 

 leaving our old Highgate home and migrating to 

 Bexley Heath in North -West Kent. The change 

 to a drier soil, however, made but little difference, 

 and after a few years' residence at Bexley Heath 

 we all went to Cambridge because my brother was 

 going up to that University. He entered at Christ's 

 College and devoted himself successfully to the Law 

 tripos, while the rest of us took up our position in a 

 house in Mortimer Road overlooking Parker's Piece. 

 My father rejoiced in the change, and delighted in 

 the society of men keenly interested in scholarship 

 and science with whom it brought him into contact. 

 He had old friends there in Mr. Aldis Wright and 

 Dr. Henry Guillemard and Mr. Robert Bowes, and 

 he made many new ones, and, in fact, as thoroughly 

 revelled in his Cambridge as if he had come up as 

 an undergraduate. The river during term time, when 

 there was rowing to be seen, was a great attraction ; 

 and there he would go, in spite of all I said about its 

 being extremely bad for his rheumatism. For cricket 



