'I have very little doubt it was so--though I wasn't old enough when he
died to hear as much from his own lips. My father went straight from the
University to Vienna, where he began his career in the diplomatic
service, and where he soon afterwards married a dowerless English girl
of good family. He went to Rio as first secretary, and died of fever
within seven years of his marriage, leaving a widow and three babies,
the youngest in long clothes. Mother and babies all came over to
England, and were at once established at Fellside. I can remember the
voyage--and I can remember my poor mother who never recovered the blow
of my father's death, and who died in yonder house, after five years of
broken health and broken spirits. We had no one but the dowager to look
to as children--hardly another friend in the world. She did what she
liked with us; she kept the girls as close as nuns, so _they_ have never
heard a hint of the old history; no breach of scandal has reached
_their_ ears. But she could not shut me up in a country house for ever,
though she did succeed in keeping me away from a public school.
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