same air of gentle pride, ``And the duchess gave me
with her own hands my Bible and my mug of beer!''
She never saw anything amusing in this association
of gifts, and I always stood behind her when she told
the incident, that she might not see the disrespectful
mirth it aroused in me.

My father and mother met in Alnwick, and were
married in February, 1835. Ten years after his
marriage father was forced into bankruptcy by the
passage of the corn law, and to meet the obliga-
tions attending his failure he and my mother
sold practically everything they possessed--their
home, even their furniture. Their little sons, who
were away at school, were brought home, and
the family expenses were cut down to the barest
margin; but all these sacrifices paid only part of the
debts. My mother, finding that her early gift had
a market value, took in sewing. Father went to
work on a small salary, and both my parents saved
every penny they could lay aside, with the desperate
determination to pay their remaining debts. It was a
long struggle and a painful one, but they finally won
it. Before they had done so, however, and during their
bleakest days, their baby died, and my mother, like
her mother before her, paid the penalty of being
outside the fold of the Church of England. She,
too, was a Unitarian, and her baby, therefore, could
not be laid in any consecrated burial-ground in her
neighborhood. She had either to bury it in the