To-night I leave by boat for Dublin, arriving to-morrow morning. I trust my own wifie has not permitted herself to be too unhappy, and that she has not been worried. I am writing with her own beautiful face before me, and have just kissed it.--Always your husband. Please write me to Morrison's. {98} CHAPTER XII HOBBIES AND A CHALLENGE "_Admire, exult--despise--laugh, weep--for here There is much matter for all feeling: Man! Thou Pendulum betwixt a smile and tear._" --BYRON. In the early summer of 1881 my aunt had one of her old friends to stay with her, and I seized the opportunity of freedom to take my children to Brighton for a month, after settling the old ladies together. I had gone down before the children to take rooms for them, and was walking across Brighton Station when I was suddenly joined by a tall man whom I did not recognize for a moment until he said quietly, "Don't you know me?" It was Mr. Parnell, who had slipped into the train at Clapham Junction, knowing that I was going to Brighton, and had cut off his beard with his pocket scissors in the train in order to avoid being recognized at Brighton. He had wrapped a white muffler round his throat, and pulled it as high as possible over the lower part of his face, with the result that the manageress of the hotel he stayed at was certain that he had an infectious illness of the throat, and rather demurred at letting him in. It was only by the expedient of complaining loudly at being kept waiting in the draught with his "raging toothache" that "Mr. Stewart" was reluctantly admitted. I could not bear his appearance neither bearded nor shaven--so he went off soon after arrival, was properly shaved, and relieved the {99} hotel staff by discarding the muffler and assuring them that he was free from pain now his "tooth" was out.