As to our early education, our father did the best he could for us; but his means were small, and the opportunities for schooling twenty-five and thirty years ago were not such as they are to-day. My sister and I, first alone and then with my brother, were sent to a little school taught by two maiden ladies; the boys being taught upstairs, and the girls in a room below. At this school, as always, although the contrary has been stated, we were withdrawn from religious instruction, but the Misses Burnell did not always obey this injunction: if a bogie was wanted to frighten us with, then "God" was trotted out. I remember on one occasion, when I suppose I had been naughty, Miss Burnell, pointing to the sky, told me that God was watching me from above and could see all I did. Childlike, I took this literally, though I suppose with the proverbial "grain of salt," for I leaned out of the window and gazed up into the sky to see for myself this "God" who was always watching my actions. It was just dusk, and it happened to be a time when some comet was visible. When I looked out and saw this brilliant body lighting up the darkness all about it, I was convinced that _this_ was the "eye of God" of which Miss Burnell had been talking, and hastily drew in my head again to get out of his sight! But as at home we had no mysterious Being either to fear (because that seems the first impression generally made upon sensitive children) or to love, this awful Eye blazing away overhead merely left a vague feeling of uneasiness behind, which time and healthier thought effaced. My little brother was soon taken from this school and sent to a boarding-school, where he remained only a few months, as it was unsatisfactory; he was also over-walked, which resulted in laming him for a time. The master who took the boys out for walking exercise could not have been of an exactly cheerful disposition, for at the time of the dreadful ice accident in 1867, when forty persons were drowned, he marched the boys to Regent's Park to see the dead bodies taken out of the water. It was a terrible sight for little boys to see; and as my little brother was only just over seven years old, the remembrance of these rows of dead bodies made an indelible impression upon his mind. He was then sent to some good friends at Plymouth, Mr and Mrs John Williamson, and while he grew well and strong in the sea breezes, he went to school with their son. On coming home again, he was sent to Mr John Grant, schoolmaster in the 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards--then a friend of Mr Thomson's, and so of my father's--who took him as a private pupil. My sister and I learned French of different French refugees who frequented our house, and I must do them the justice to say that our French was both a great deal better taught and learned than our English. My father used to hold sudden examinations at unstated times of our progress in the French language, especially if he happened to come across a _franc_ piece,