except for the servants, but this circumstance did not affect me. My
childhood and upbringing had been of no ordinary nature, and I was used to
looking after myself and depending on my own resources for amusement and
occupation.

My mother had died when I was yet a small child and, with my elder sister
and brother, I had grown up under our father's eye. He was a chemist and a
man of advanced ideas on most things. He had never sent us to school,
preferring to watch in person over our education, procuring for us private
tuition in many subjects, and himself instructing us in physical science
and history, his two favourite studies. We rapidly gained knowledge under
his system and were decidedly precocious children, but we had none of the
ordinary school society and routine. Our childhood was by no means dull or
mopish, for there were three of us and we got on very well together, but
we mixed hardly at all with children of our own age, our interests were
not theirs, and their boisterous ways were somewhat repellent to us.

Our father was a great believer in liberty, and, strange to say, he put
his ideas into practice in his own household. He was a devoted and
enthusiastic student, and for days, nay, weeks together, we would see but
little of him. He had fitted himself up a small laboratory at the top of
our house on which he spent all his available money, and here he passed
nearly all the time he could dispose of over and beyond that necessary for
the preparation and delivery of his scientific lectures. As we grew out of
childhood he made no difference in his mode of life. He gave us full
liberty to follow our various bents, assisting us with his advice when
requested, ever ready to provide the money necessary for any special
studies or books; taking an interest in our readings and intellectual
pursuits. The idea of providing us with suitable society, of launching us
out into the world, of troubling to see that we conformed to the ordinary