would begin to flash and his voice to rise as he told of these horrors,
and then his face would soften as he added that, after it was all over
and the slavery was put an end to, as he went through a coal-district the
women standing at their doors would lift up their children to see "Lawyer
Roberts" go by, and would bid "God bless him" for what he had done. This
dear old man was my first tutor in Radicalism, and I was an apt pupil. I
had taken no interest in politics, but had unconsciously reflected more
or less the decorous Whiggism which had always surrounded me. I regarded
"the poor" as folk to be educated, looked after, charitably dealt with,
and always treated with most perfect courtesy, the courtesy being due
from me, as a lady, to all equally, whether they were rich or poor. But
to Mr. Roberts "the poor" were the working-bees, the wealth producers,
with a right to self-rule, not to looking after, with a right to justice,
not to charity, and he preached his doctrines to me, in season and out of
season. "What do you think of John Bright?" he demanded of me one day. "I
have never thought of him at all," I answered lightly. "Isn't he a rather
rough sort of man, who goes about making rows?" "There, I thought so," he
broke out fiercely. "That's just what they say. I believe some of you
fine ladies would not go to heaven if you had to rub shoulders with John
Bright, the noblest man God ever gave to the cause of the poor." And then
he launched out into stories of John Bright's work and John Bright's
eloquence, and showed me the changes that work and eloquence had made in
the daily lives of the people.

With Mr. Roberts, his wife, and two daughters, I went to Switzerland as
the autumn drew near. It would be of little interest to tell how we went
to Chamounix and worshipped Mont Blanc, how we crossed the Mer de Glace
and the Mauvais Pas, how we visited the Monastery of St. Bernard (I
losing my heart to the beautiful dogs), how we went by steamer down the
lake of Thun, how we gazed at the Jungfrau and saw the exquisite