YES, I fell down; Nature could stand no more; and a discerning Providence, relenting at last, mercifully granted me a moment’s oblivion while my mother’s eight sisters swept over me. But I was never to be the same man again; and I have always regarded that unconscious moment as definitely conducting me into what has happily proved the long afternoon of my life. For it must not be thought that I am repining, or that, looking back over the intervening years, I am anything but grateful for that final ordeal, through which my character was required to pass. On the contrary—_post tenebras lux_[16]—as I have often remarked to my wife and her sisters, I can only thank Heaven that I was considered worthy of so prolonged and fierce a discipline. Footnote 16: After darkness light. Nor do I propose, as I now turn, in this the final chapter of my book, to the quiet contemplation of the fruitful activities with which my later life has been concerned—nor do I propose, I say, to linger unduly over the tragic incidents just recorded. Defeated in their object by what I have since been informed was the rupture of an important cerebral artery, my father’s eight murderesses—for such in fact they were—were obliged to return again to Llanpwhllanpwh, though not until they had compelled me, on pain of attending his funeral, to purchase their tickets out of my father’s estate. Much more difficult, however, was the problem of my mother, who had thus unexpectedly survived her husband, and for whom I was therefore obliged, as I had promised my father, to make some sort of provision. This was the more harassing, too, in that my father’s savings had been practically obliterated by his law costs, thereby reducing my own inheritance to the bare sum for which he had been insured. Further diminished by an iniquitous taxation, the settlement of bills, and the expenses of his interment, I was thus faced, in respect of my mother, with a singularly annoying predicament—and this at the very moment when my attention was fully occupied with the details of my wedding. Great was my satisfaction, therefore, when my fiancée, with an intelligence as welcome as it was unexpected, suggested that my mother should continue her previous functions in the house that we had procured at Stoke Newington. She would thus not only be assured of food and shelter, but would enjoy the additional satisfaction of enabling us to dispense, in our new home, with the paid services of a cook. “A good idea,” I cried, “an excellent idea,” and I remember Tact’s pleasure when I gave her a kiss. So astounding, however, was my mother’s reception of the plan that I was obliged to sit down for several minutes, while the scene recurred to me in the form of a nightmare on at least three occasions during the following fortnight. “No,” said my mother. “I’m very sorry, Augustus. But my future arrangements won’t permit of it.” I stared at her. “Your future arrangements?” I said.