I said: "Mr. ---- _can_ shoot, really, Mr. Parnell, as I told you, but he is nervous!" So Mr. ---- went on, making shot after shot with varying success till {209} Mrs. ---- appeared on the scene dressed in her best and Sunday virtue, which was resplendent in Eltham. She gazed with pain upon Mr. ----, who, to appear at ease, entered into a discussion of revolver patterns with Mr. Parnell. I talked cheerfully to her for a few moments, and introduced Mr. Parnell, which gratified her immensely, and the two went off happy, but so conscious of the enormity of having given countenance to such desecration of the Sabbath, in Sunday shooting, that we knew we were safe from their perhaps inconvenient chatter. Mr. Parnell was always interested in cricket, and I had a private pitch laid out for him at Eltham in a two-acre field. As a young man he had been an enthusiast, and the captain of his eleven. He never went to matches, however, after he entered Parliament. He talked to me much about Avondale. He loved the place, and was never tired of planning the alterations and improvements he meant to make in the old house when we could marry. He often went over to Ireland expressly to see how things were going there, but after 1880 he could never stay even a few days there in peace. The after-effects of the awful famine, in such terrible cases of poverty and woe as were brought to his notice the moment he arrived in his old home, made it impossible for him to remain there at all. No one man could deal charitably with all these poor people and live, and as time went on Mr. Parnell's visits became necessarily shorter, for the demands were so many, and the poverty so great, that he could not carry the burden and continue the political life necessary to their alleviation. He told me that he despaired of ever having a penny in his pocket when he took me there, as he always hoped to do. He was very fond of the old woman he kept at {210} Avondale in charge of the house, and who attended to his few needs when he was there; and whenever he went there he would get me to go to Fortnum and Mason's to buy a pound of their 4s. a pound tea for the old dame, who much appreciated this delicious tea, though she of course stewed it into poison before drinking it.