strictly after their morals; and as she appeals to Miss Meggs whilst
voicing this sentiment, the latter timidly interjects, "But do you think,
my dear Maria, that cats can maintain themselves chaste on a meat diet? I
never give mine anything more exciting than cold potatoes and rice
pudding, and I find that they thrive on it, Mr. Meredith!"

At this point we children, stifling our laughter, rush headlong from the
room, to vent our mirth in safety in the kitchen.

Another frequent visitor whom my imagination summoned from the grave in
which he had lain now for several years past, was a tall, thin,
delicate-looking man of some thirty years of age. He was by birth a
Frenchman, but had lived mostly in England, his parents having come over
as political exiles from the tyranny of Louis Napoleon, afterwards
settling permanently in this country. He was an engineer by profession,
but a poet at heart, and all his spare time and thought he devoted to
tackling the problem of aerial navigation. His day was spent earning a
scanty living in a shipbuilding yard, but his evenings and nights were
passed in constructing a model of a flying-machine. He would bring his
drawings round to our father for discussion and advice; and although he
never attained success, he was always hopeful, trusting that some one of
the ever fresh improvements and additions which his fertile brain was
always busy conceiving would solve the difficulty which had hitherto beset
him. His sallow face with its large dreamy eyes and his spare figure, clad
in an old bluish suit, rusty with age and threadbare with brushing, stand
out clear in my memory. There was also an old professor, a chemist like my
father, who often assisted him in his experiments. He was somewhat
formidable in appearance, wearing gold spectacles, and helping himself
freely to the contents of a snuff-box, but he was one of the most
kind-hearted of men. Children were great favourites with him, and his