After the dismissal by Peel, a long and anxious time set in for the little household in the then semi-rural precinct of Orme Square, Bayswater; and again my mother's sterling qualities were revealed. Reared as she had been in a circle where money was plentiful and hospitality unbounded, she wasted no time in useless lamentations, but at once curtailed domestic expenses—those most ruthlessly cut down being, as, later, our father failed not to tell us, her own. In his parents' home he had lived in far plainer style than that maintained in the house of which, for many years, owing to her mother's early death, she had been mistress. Yet in all that ministered to her husband's comfort she allowed scarcely any change to be made. At the same time, there was no running into debt, because she had a hearty contempt for the practice she was wont to describe as “living on the forbearance of one's tradespeople.” But at last anxiety was changed to relief. One morning a letter arrived inviting her husband to join the London and Brighton Railway Board of Directors. Owing to gross mismanagement, the line had long been going from bad to worse in every way; and an entirely new directorate was now chosen. The invitation was especially gratifying because it came from personal strangers. My father's connection with the railway forms an interesting chapter of his life which has been told elsewhere. In a work dealing only with the postal reform, repetition of the story in detail would be out of place. One brief paragraph, therefore, shall suffice to recall what was a pleasant episode in his career.