a gentleman who sat opposite me at table, for the simple reason that I
believed him to be the Duke of Wellington. There was rather more fuss
than usual in the way of preparation, and my father treated his guest
with marked deference, besides which the stranger had the Wellingtonian
nose, so my youthful mind was soon made up on the subject, and I
listened eagerly in the hope that the hero of Waterloo would fight some
of his battles over again. He remained, however, silent on that subject,
and I afterwards had the disappointment of learning that our guest was
not the Duke, but only the holder of a high office in the county.




CHAPTER VI.


1844.

My extreme loneliness.--Thoughts of flight.--My father's last illness
and death.--Circumstances of my last interview with him.--His funeral.

It was one of the effects of the constant anxiety and excitement, and
the dreadful wretchedness of that time, that my brain received the
images of all surrounding creatures and things with an unnatural
clearness and intensity, and that they were impressed upon it for life.
Even now everything about Ivy Cottage is as clear as if the forty years
were only as many days, and the writing of these chapters brings
everything before me most vividly, not only the faces of the people and
the habits and motions of the animals, but even the furniture, of which
I remember every detail, down to the coloring of the services in the