There was snow that Christmas, very deep at Eltham; and Parnell, who had joined me there, walked round the snowy paths of my aunt's place with me in the moonlight. Now and then he moved with me into the shadow of the trees as a few lads and men, with the inevitable cornet and {224} trombone of a village "band," plunged through the drifts on their short cut to the old house. There they sang Christmas carols to their hearts' content, knowing they were earning their yearly bonus, to be presented with a polite message of her "distaste" for carol singing by "Mrs. Ben's" (as she was affectionately called in the village) man-servant the next morning. Parnell and I enjoyed that pacing up and down the wide terrace in the snowy moonlight. The snow had drifted up against the old urns and the long, low balustrade that divided the north and south lawns; and the great shadows of the beech trees looked unfamiliar and mysterious--pierced here and there, where the blanket covering of snow had dropped off, by the cold glitter of moonlight on the whiteness. Right away to the south lay the "Chase," leading away to Chislehurst, wide, cold, and lonely in the moonlight, and I told Parnell that the cloud shadows that flitted over the glistening whiteness were the phantoms of the hunters of King John's time, who used to hunt over this ground, renewing their sport in the moonlight. Parnell loved to hear these little imaginations, and I loved to tell them to him for the sake of seeing the grave smile come, and of hearing the naïve "Is that so?" of his appreciation. We walked up and down in the moonlight till the carols died away, and we heard the church clocks strike twelve. Then we stood together to listen to the Christmas bells sound clear and sharp from many villages on the frosty air, while Parnell again spoke to me of his belief that the soul after death resumed life in the planet under whose influence it was born. He spoke of his belief in a personal destiny and fate, against which it was useless {225} for mortals to contend or fight, and how he believed that certain souls had to meet and become one, till in death the second planet life parted them until the sheer longing for one another brought them together again in after ages.[3] I said, "But it seems so lonely like that!" and he answered, "It is lonely; that is why I am so afraid always of death, and why I hope with every bit of me that we shall die together." The next day I went to Brighton to see the children for Christmas, and in the New Year Willie went to Ireland, returning to Brighton to stay with the children for a short time before they came home in February and he went to Lisbon. The following telegrams and letters show the development of affairs during the course of this year:-- (Telegrams.) _Feb._ 29, 1884. (Handed in at the House of Commons Office.) _From_ PARNELL. _To_ MRS. O'SHEA, ELTHAM, KENT.