In the evenings, and on days when the state of the
pavement did not permit him to work, he took great pains with my
education, which he could very well do, for as a boy he had been in the
sixth form of one of our foremost public schools. I found him a patient,
kindly instructor, while to my mother he was a model husband. Whatever
others may have said about him, I can never think of him without very
affectionate respect.
Things went on quietly enough, as above indicated, till I was about
fourteen, when by a freak of fortune my father became suddenly affluent.
A brother of his father's had emigrated to Australia in 1851, and had
amassed great wealth. We knew of his existence, but there had been no
intercourse between him and my father, and we did not even know that he
was rich and unmarried. He died intestate towards the end of 1885, and
my father was the only relative he had, except, of course, myself, for
both my father's sisters had died young, and without leaving children.
The solicitor through whom the news reached us was, happily, a man of the
highest integrity, and also very sensible and kind. He was a Mr. Alfred
Emery Cathie, of 15 Clifford's Inn, E.C., and my father placed himself
unreservedly in his hands. I was at once sent to a first-rate school,
and such pains had my father taken with me that I was placed in a higher
form than might have been expected considering my age.
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