A TERRIBLE DISASTER 47 pushed on t but he would not have thought of opposing the marriage on the ground of my family. But a governess is a different thing; she is in many cases a lady in every respect, but her position is a doubtful one.

“ In some families she is treated as one of themselves ; in others her position is very little different from that of an upper servant. Your grandfather was a passionate man, and a very proud man. Your father’s elder brother was well provided for, but there were two sisters, and these and your father he hoped would make good marriages. He lived in very good style, but your uncle was extravagant, and your grandfather was over-indulgent and crippled himself a good deal in paying the debts that he incurred. It was natural, therefore, that he should have objected to your father’s engagement to what he called a penniless governess. It was only what was to be expected. If ‘he had stated his objections to the marriage calmly, there need have been no quarrel. Your father would assuredly have married me in any case, and your grandfather might have refused to assist him if he did so, but there need have been no breakup in the family such as took place.

However, as it was, your father resented his tone, and what had been merely a difference of opinion became a serious quarrel, and they never saw each other afterwards. It was a great grief to me, and it was owing to that, and his ‘being unable to earn his living in England, that your father brought me out here. I believe he would have done well at home, though it would have been a hard struggle. At that time I was very delicate, and was ordered by the doctors to go to a warm climate, and therefore your father accepted a position of a kind which at least enabled us to live, and obtained for me the benefit of a warm climate. Then the chance came of his going up to the Soudan, and there was a certainty that if the expedition succeeded, as everyone believed it would, he would have obtained permanent rank inthe Egyptian army, and so recovered the position in life that he had voluntarily given up for my sake.”