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ssss1.Now Sir Henry Irving.

I am perhaps a little more fastidious now, but the dramatic passion exists in all its fervour, and will till the curtain drops and the lights are extinguished.

But to turn once more to real life. The neighbourhood of Somerset House had other advantages beside those of the theatres, for the Royal Academy still existed under its roof, and almost every Monday morning during the Exhibition, we young ones used to go with our governess to pay the pictures a visit immediately on the opening of the doors, when the rooms were empty, swept and garnished, before the crowd and its accompanying dust had arrived. Then there was a walk with father in the early morning to Covent Garden, when the alleys were all watered, the flowers all fresh and fragrant, and the market uncrowded.

Cavendish and I had several governesses before the Miss Richardson of whom I have spoken elsewhere, but the sad time arrived when my darling companion was to betake himself to the Charterhouse, which our brother Charles had lately left in the proud character of orator, a dignity which was afterwards reached in the next generation by another member^[11] of our family. On the night ordained for Cavendish’s departure, an upper boy came to our house, who was to be his master at school. At that moment I half disliked good John Horner, because he carried off my beloved brother; but the transient dislike soon changed into a tender friendship, which lasted many years. To break the fall, as it were, my father allowed me to accompany him and the two boys to the old Carthusian edifice, and I proceeded thither with the heaviest of hearts, my position rendered all the more cruel, because I had been forbidden to shed one tear, and was desired to sit far back in the carriage and not show myself. For the school-boy that was to be, assured me that the fellows always chaffed a new arrival about his sister. This was a terrible wound, but in the course of time I became a frequent visitor at Charterhouse, was allowed to go on the green (cruel misnomer for the black patch where they played cricket), and, if the truth be told, made close friendships with some of the “fellows.” Alfred Montgomery, Frank Sheridan, and John Horner often came to our house with Cavendish from Saturday till Sunday night, to my inexpressible delight! There are none left now to talk over old Charterhouse days with me!