6 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



however, was by this time weary of such an aimless life, 

 such incessant pitching of the tent a day's march further 

 on. She swept aside the objections of her husband's 

 gentility, and determined to see whether she could not 

 bring grist to the mill. While Mr. Gosse was away 

 painting his portraits, she obtained permission to turn the 

 front room of their lodgings into a shop. She was " at 

 the expense of a large and finely sashed bow-window," 

 and this she stocked with groceries. The consequence 

 was that, when her husband made his next proposal that, 

 as usual, they should move on, she declined to leave 

 Leicester, and allowed him to start on a professional tour 

 through the east of England alone. She was, however, 

 in spite of her energy, unskilled in the arts of shopkeeping, 

 and when he returned, she easily agreed to make one more 

 flitting — as far as she was concerned, the final one. 



Three of Thomas Gosse's elder sisters had married 

 well, and were all domiciled at Poole, in Dorsetshire. In 

 the autumn of 1811 he went thither to visit them, and was 

 struck by the advantages that might accrue from settling 

 in the neighbourhood of these three well-to-do establish- 

 ments. His visit to Poole, moreover, was attended by the 

 exhibition in the heavens of a comet of unusual splendour, 

 and this imposing spectacle impressed his wife as an omen 

 of favourable import. Thomas Gosse passed the winter in 

 visiting his three sisters in turn, was encouraged by them 

 all to come to reside in Dorset, and in May, 1812, returned 

 to Leicester to prepare for the final flitting. The family 

 set out by stages in the coach, their furniture following 

 them by waggon. They spent a few days at Titton Brook 

 with the grand-parents, and on this occasion my father 

 formed his earliest durable recollection of a scene. He 

 was two years and one month old at the time, and his 

 record of the fact may be given as the first example of the 



