[10] Poor little Ringan! (his name was the ancient "pet" form of "Ninian," the saint of Galloway). On the election-day, a year or so afterwards, the burgesses of Cardiff smiled to see him driving through the streets in a motor from which flew a bannerette recommending them to "Vote for Daddy!" There was universal regret, a few days later, at the sad news that the little electioneerer had succumbed to a chill caught on the occasion of his first public appearance, when less than two years old. See _post._ page 176. [11] The actual tenant, Colonel Campbell, whose wife was a Catholic, eventually bought the property. {132} CHAPTER VIII 1908-1909 I spent the Christmas of 1908, as usual, very pleasantly at Beaufort. For the first time for many years the family was absolutely _au complet_: the services of the season in the beautiful chapel were well attended; and I sympathized with the happiness of my kind hostess, as she knelt at the altar at midnight mass surrounded by all her children, without exception. There were grandchildren, too, of all ages, who amused themselves vastly in spite of appalling weather, rain, snow, frost, thaw, and gales, following one another in rapid and unwelcome succession. The children acted a pretty and touching miracle-play, the hand-painted programme whereof still adorns my scrap-book; and there were seasonable revels of various kinds. At New Year somebody announced that 1909 was to be a great year of anniversaries, 1809 having been _annus mirabilis_. We remembered (with difficulty) eight celebrities born that year--Mendelssohn, E. Barrett Browning, Darwin, Tennyson, O. Wendell Holmes, Lord Houghton, W. E. Gladstone, and Abraham Lincoln, but could think of no others. This reminded some one else that I. Disraeli called thirty-seven the "fatal age of genius," four great men (among others) who died at that age having been Raphael, Mozart, {133} Byron and Burns. I wound up with a statement new, I think, to everybody, viz., that Saturday was the fatal day of the week to the English Royal Family (Hanoverian Line). I have not followed the matter down to quite recent times; but it is undoubtedly singular that William III., Queen Anne, George I., II., III., and IV., the Duchess of Kent, the Prince Consort, and Princess Alice all died on a Saturday.