On one occasion in 1880 he was informed privately that his arrest for "sedition" was being urged upon the Government, and that it would be well to go abroad for a short time. I think his enigmatic reply, "I will {84} disappear for a few weeks," must have puzzled his informant. He came down to me at night, and when I answered his signal at my sitting-room window, and let him in, he told me with a deprecating smile that I must hide him for a few weeks. As I sat watching him eat the supper I always had ready for him at 3 a.m. I felt rather hopeless, as he was a big man, and I did not see how he could be hidden from the servants. He said the latter must not know he was there, as they would talk to the tradespeople, and they to the Government men. He did not wish to be arrested until later on, when it might be more useful than not. Then he awaited suggestions, and at length we decided that a little room opening out of my own must be utilized for him, as I always kept it locked and never allowed a servant into it--except very occasionally to "turn it out." It was a little boudoir dressing-room, and had a sofa in it. Mr. Parnell was then still feeling ill and run down, and enjoyed his fortnight's absolute rest in this room. None of the servants knew that he was there, and I took all his food up at night, cooking little dainty dishes for him at the open fire, much to his pleasure and amusement. He spent the time very happily, resting, writing "seditious" speeches for future use, and reading "Alice in Wonderland." This book was a favourite of his, and I gave it to him with the solemnity that befitted his grave reading of it. I do not think he ever thought it in the least amusing, but he would read it earnestly from cover to cover, and, without a smile, remark that it was a "curious book." In all this fortnight no one had the least idea that he was in the house, and the only comment I ever heard upon {85} my prisoner's diet was that "the mistress ate much more when she had her meals served in her sitting-room." At the end of this fortnight he had arranged to go to Paris on some Land League business, and wanted me to go to see him off. He had brought certain political correspondence from Avondale and London and placed it in my charge, and this I kept in a box in this little private room, where I hid them. But there were two papers that he did not wish left even here, and, fearing arrest, could not carry on him. For these he had a wide, hollow gold bracelet made in Paris, and after inserting the papers he screwed the bracelet safely on my arm; there it remained for three years, and was then unscrewed by him and the contents destroyed. The winter of 1880 was terribly cold, and as I let him out of the house in the bitterly cold morning I wished he did not consider it necessary to go to Paris by such a roundabout route as he had chosen.