Mr. Parnell, who was in very bad health at that time, a few days later complained of sore throat, and looked, as I thought, mournfully at my indoor garden, which I industriously watered every day. It then dawned upon me that he was accusing this of giving him sore throat, and I taxed him with it. He evidently feared to vex me, but admitted that he did think it was so, and "wouldn't it do if they were not watered so often?" He was childishly touched when I at once had them all removed, and he sank happily on to the sofa, saying that "plants were such damp things!" His throat became no better, and he looked so terribly ill when--as he often did now--he fell asleep from sheer weakness on the sofa before the fire, that I became very uneasy about him. Once, on awaking from one of these sleeps of exhaustion, he told me abruptly that he believed it was the green in the carpet that gave him sore throat. There and then we cut a bit out, and sent it to London to be analysed, but without result. It was quite a harmless carpet. During this time I nursed him assiduously, making him take nourishment at regular intervals, seeing that these day-sleeps of his were not disturbed, and forcing {70} him to take fresh air in long drives through the country around us. At length I had the satisfaction of seeing his strength gradually return sufficiently to enable him to take the exercise that finished the process of this building-up, and he became stronger than he had been for some years. I do not think anyone but we who saw him then at Eltham, without the mask of reserve he always presented to the outside world, had any idea of how near death's door his exertions on behalf of the famine-stricken peasants of Ireland had brought him. Once in that autumn, after he came to us, I took him for a long drive in an open carriage through the hop-growing district of Kent. I had not thought of the fact that hundreds of the poorest of the Irish came over for the hop-picking, and might recognize him. After driving over Chislehurst Common and round by the lovely Grays, we came right into a crowd of the Irish "hoppers"--men, women, and children. In a moment there was a wild surge towards the carriage, with cries of "The Chief! The Chief!" and "Parnell! Parnell! Parnell!" The coachman jerked the horses on to their haunches for fear of knocking down the enthusiastic men and women who were crowding up--trying to kiss Parnell's hand, and calling for "a few words." He lifted his cap with that grave, aloof smile of his, and said no, he was not well enough to make the smallest of speeches, but he was glad to see them, and would talk to them when they went home to Ireland. Then, bidding them to "mind the little ones," who were scrambling about the horses' legs, to the manifest anxiety of the coachman, he waved them away, and we drove off amid fervent "God keep your honours!" and cheers.