I never hinted it to anybody when we were struggling through; indeed, we washed our faces and anointed our heads and appeared not unto men to fast! The clothes and the boots and the butcher's bills! It's pleasant to think of now, just as it's pleasant to look from the hilltop at the steep road you've come.

The boys sometimes tell me that they are glad we were too poor to have a nurse, for it meant that they were brought up with their father and me.

We had our meals together, and their father helped them with their lessons.

Indeed, it's only now I realise how happy I was to have them all under one roof." She stopped and sighed, and went on again with a laugh.

"I remember one time a week before the Sustentation Fund was due, I was down to one six-pence And of course a collector arrived! D'you remember that, John ?...