He was sent to school, went out as a page-boy, and became a footman. He made an excellent servant, clean, punctual, tidy, and efficient—but, alas! he finally traced his pedigree to a family of very high degree; from that moment he was ruined. He thought himself too grand for his situation, became idle, took to drink, began blackmail, and generally went to the dogs. The house we took was a few doors from this romance. Built about 1810, the house was strong and good, but old-fashioned, so we had to put in a bath, have hot and cold water laid on upstairs; add gas, after finally deciding it would be too much bother to work our own electric dynamo in the cellar (the only possible source of electric light in London in 1887 was at the Grosvenor Gallery in Bond Street); reconstruct the drains from end to end; in fact, turn an ancient dwelling into a modern one. A vine, probably as old as the house, bears fruit on the drawing-room balcony every summer, and lilies of the valley and jasmine flourish beneath the window. One year the vine bore one hundred and seventy bunches of little black grapes. In the hot summer of 1911 the number of bunches was less; but two weighed respectively one pound, and thirteen ounces. * * * * * Was it Chance? or did Dame Brilliana Harley hover as a guardian angel round the path of her namesake, gently whispering suggestions shedding her influence to draw me in her footsteps? Howe’er it was, after my marriage and departure abroad, naturally nothing more was thought of the shiny black cloth book of Iceland notes by its owner. Meantime it happened that Miss Ellen Barlee, a fairly well-known authoress in those days—she wrote a _Life of the Prince Imperial_—was going blind, and my father lent them to her so that her secretary might read my jottings aloud in the evening with a view to amusing the old lady. [Illustration: GRAPES GROWING ON A LONDON BALCONY] One day she sent for me. “My dear, you must publish this,” she said as soon as I arrived. At that time I had not long returned from my wedding tour. Needless to say, therefore, I laughed at the idea. Miss Barlee was determined, however, to carry her point. “If you do not believe in my opinion,” she said, “may I send the manuscripts to my publisher, and if he approves of it, will you take the matter into serious consideration, as you are almost the first woman—girl, I should rather say—to have been across Iceland?” Naturally I assented to her proposal, thinking the whole thing absurd. What was my surprise when, a little later, I received a letter from the publisher to say that he liked the notes, and if I would divide them into chapters he thought that they would make a nice little book. He also asked whether I could let him have any illustrations for it.