to receive impressions, and from its earliest consciousness had been
watched and cultured in such manner as must have enriched even the
poorest understanding. As children of ordinary rank are familiar with
games, and hear of simple every-day events that happen to their
neighbours, this heir to a dukedom was familiar with the game of Courts
and rulers and heard daily discussion of Kings and great statesmen--of
their rights and wrongs, their triumphs and failures. The changing
events made such discussion inevitable, and the boy, being through
their wise affection treated almost as the companion of his parents,
heard much important conversation which filled him with deep interest
and led him into grave thinking which greatly developed his powers of
mind. Among the many memories which remained with him throughout his
life, and which in his later years he realised, had left a singularly
definite image upon his mind, was this small incident of his first
hearing of the Gloucestershire baronet whose lady had wept the blue
from her eyes in her wretchedness under his brutal neglect and cruelty.
The impression doubtless owed much of its vividness to the fact that
'twas made so early as to be the first realising of the existence of a
world where misery dwelt as a common thing, where men were coarse and
cruel, where women were tyrannised over and treated roughly, and where
children were unloved and neglected. Into this world he had previously
obtained no glimpse; but, once having realised its existence, he could
not easily forget it. Often as time passed he found himself haunted by
thoughts of the poor injured lady and her children, and being a
creature of strong imagination, there would rise before him mental
pictures of what a household might be whose master was a coarse rioter
before whom his wife and children cowered in fear.

So it happened in his conversing with Mistress Halsell he broached the
subject of the Gloucestershire baronet, and the good woman, seeing that