The advent of the baby and all his paraphernalia made us feel more crowded for space than ever, and as the music publishers had a room on the first floor which they used as a stock-room, my husband arranged to rent this, and we furnished it as a sitting-room. We made it look as pretty as we could, and it was ready for us at the end of September. On my father's birthday (the 26th) I persuaded him to take us to the theatre, and we went to the Lyceum to see _Ravenswood_. On coming home we had supper in the bright new room instead of the dark place underground, and many were my father's jokes about the unwonted splendour of his surroundings. Alas! it seemed that that room was furnished only for him to die in three months later. The winter of 1890 set in early and severely. In November it began to snow, and snow and fog continued well into the new year. With the cold weather my father began to feel ill again. He thought of going to Paris to spend the New Year, but he could not afford it. I was sorry he could not go, for he always came back the better for a few days in Paris. He was a welcome visitor to the French capital; he had never been made to feel himself an outcast from society there. Coming home with him one fearfully foggy night in December[65] from a lecture he had been delivering at the Hall of Science on behalf of a testimonial to Mr Forder, the Secretary of the National Secular Society, the conversation turned upon the value of his books, and he mentioned two or three which he thought--erroneously, as it turned out--very valuable. I asked him if he would not sell them; if he could get a holiday and health with the money they would fetch, they would be well worth the exchange. "Ah, my daughter, when I sell my books----" he began, and his unfinished answer told all the sadness of his thought. Twice he would have had to sell them if friends had not come to his aid--once, as I have said, to pay the Government costs in Bradlaugh _v._ Erskine, and next in the Peters and Kelly case. He loved his books; to part with them seemed like parting with his heart's blood. [Footnote 65: Wednesday, 10th December. This was the last lecture Mr Bradlaugh ever delivered. The subject was "The Evidence for the Gospels," in criticism of Dr Watkin's Bampton lectures.] * * * * *