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approval or comment, nor did he ever attempt to sway us by sign or word.

Although our home was small, the doors were made to open very
wide. Relations and friends, all who stood in need of kindness and
hospitality, seemed to find their way here. My father's youngest
sister Harriet, after leaving the Orphan Asylum in which she had been
placed at her father's death, lived with us for a long time. She
was a brilliant, handsome girl, yet bearing a strong resemblance to
my father. I can always picture her as she stood one 30th of April,
awaiting the child guests who were to come to make merry over my
sister's birthday. Standing against the wall I can see her tall,
well-proportioned figure, robed in one of the sprigged muslin gowns
of those days, the short sleeves and low neck of the time showing her
fine arms and shoulders. I see her face with its fair complexion, alive
with vivacity and the warm glow of health, her light brown hair, her
laughing mouth and eyes--eyes which were certainly not of the "angel"
order, but whose fire and flash gave some warning of the unrestrained
temper within. Poor Harriet! this same temper was her own undoing.
Driven by it she married badly, in every sense of the word, dragged
through a few years of miserable existence, and eventually died in the
Fulham Hospital, of smallpox, when it fell to my father to discharge
the funeral expenses--such was the poverty of her own home. I have
heard that stories have been told and even preached from a public
platform of her "deathbed conversion," but this is only one of the
common pious frauds. Her illness was quite unexpected, and lasted only
a few days, none of her family, except her husband, knowing of it
until after she was dead. Apart from that point and the nature of her
illness, which would somewhat stand in the way of much visiting, I am
not aware that she ever called herself anything but a Christian. She
was brought up in that religion, and she was not interfered with whilst
with us.

Here, also, Mr Bradlaugh's younger brother found a resting place and
tendance after illness; but as I shall have occasion to speak of him
later, I will for the moment pass him with a mere mention.

Others, too, more than I can count, found their way to that small
house in Northumberland Park. Some were nursed there, some did their
courtship there, and some were even married from there. In the
meantime, who can tell how many were the visitors to that little study
at the back, over the kitchen? Alas! I can only remember the names of
a few. There were Frenchmen like Talandier, Le Blanc, Elisée Reclus,
Alphonse Esquiros; Italians and Englishmen working for Mazzini and
Garibaldi; Irish politicals like General Cluseret and Kelly; and there
was Alexander Herzen, for whom my father had a great admiration, and
whom he always counted as a friend. These, whose names are sometimes
joined to faces, and others, faces without names, lie indistinctly in
the dim far-back memory of my childhood.

 * * * * *

I was here about to break off and take up again the thread of the story
of Mr Bradlaugh's public work, but it occurs to me that I have said
little about my father's treatment of us, his children, and of our
early education. There is so little to say, and certainly so little
of importance to linger over, that I should have passed on to other
matters were it not for the imaginings of those who make it their
business to spread false statements concerning Mr Bradlaugh, even on
such a purely personal matter as his children's education.

My father was away from home so much that ordinarily we saw him very
little, and my earliest recollection of him is at St. Helen's Place.
One evening in particular seems to stand out in my memory. The room
was alight and warm with gas and fire; and at one end of the table,
covered with papers, sat my father. I suppose that we were romping
and noisy, and interfered with his work, for he turned towards us and
said in grave tones, which I can always hear, "Is it not time you
little lassies went to bed?" A trifling incident, but it shows that at
that time he was obliged to do his thinking and writing in the common
room in the midst of his family, and the term "little lassies" was
a characteristic one with him. When we were quite little, if he had
anything serious to say to us, it was his "little lassies" he talked
to; as we grew older it was "my daughters," and what he had to say
always seemed to have an additional emphasis by the use of the special,
yet tender term, almost entirely reserved for serious occasions. In the
morning, when he left home, we three children always assembled for the
"goodbye" kiss; after that we seldom saw him until the next day. If,
however, he was home in the evenings while we were still up, we used
to sit by his elbow while he played whist or chess, and after the game
was over he would so carefully explain his own moves, and perhaps the
faults of his partner or his opponents, that before I was twelve years
old I could play whist as well as I can to-day, and chess a great deal
better, merely through watching his play, and paying attention to his
comments.

Broxbourne was then his favourite place for fishing; it was easily
reached from Northumberland Park, and there were in those days good
fish in the Lea. He and the proprietor of the fishing-right were very
good friends; and sometimes when it grew too dark to fish, he would
wind up his day with a pleasant game at billiards before taking the
train home. He generally took us children with him if the day was fine,
and these were indeed red-letter days for us. We were on our honour
not to get into any mischief, and, with the one restriction that we
were not to make a noise close to the water, we were allowed a perfect,
glorious liberty. Sometimes we too would fish, and my father would
give us little lines and floats and hooks, and with an impromptu rod
stolen from the nearest willow or ash tree we would do our best to
imitate our superior. But my brother was the only one who showed great
perseverance in this respect; my sister and I soon tired of watching
the placid float on the sparkling water, and sought other amusements.
At Carthagena Weir my father would "make it right" with old Brimsden
the lock-keeper, and he would rig us up a rope swing on which he would
make a seat of a most wonderful sheep-skin; or there were a score of
ways in which we amused ourselves, for there was no one to say, "Don't
do this" or "Don't do that." We could roll in the grass and get our
white muslin dresses grass-green, jump in the ditch and fill our shoes
with mud, anything so long as we enjoyed ourselves and did no harm.
Whether it was the feeling of freedom and the being made our own judges
of right or wrong, I do not know, but I do not remember one occasion
on which we were rebuked either by the lenient guardian with us or by
the stricter one when we got home again--for, of course, as is mostly
the way with women, my mother was much more particu

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