"One evening he asked the miller where the river went." "'It goes down the valley,' answered he, 'and turns a power
of mills.'"—R. L. STEVENSON.
 
 
Willie and The O'Gorman Mahon had been returned at the General Election, and many and varied were the stories The O'Gorman Mahon told me subsequently of their amusing experiences. How they kissed nearly every girl in Clare and drank with every man—and poor Willie loathed Irish whisky—how Willie's innate fastidiousness in dress brought gloom into the eyes of the peasantry until his unfeigned admiration of their babies and live stock, scrambing together about the cabins, "lifted a smile to the lip."
 
The O'Gorman Mahon was then a tall, handsome old man with a perfect snowstorm of white hair, and eyes as merry and blue as those of a boy. He could look as fierce as an old eagle on occasion, however, and had fought, in his day, more duels than he could remember. A fine specimen of the old type of Irishman.
 
When he came down to Eltham to see us, Willie and I took him over to Greenwich and gave him a fish dinner. We sat late into the night talking of Irish affairs, and The O'Gorman Mahon said to me, "If you meet Parnell, Mrs. O'Shea, be good to him. His begging expedition to America has about finished him, and I don't believe he'll last the session out."
 
{57}
He went on to speak of Mr. Parnell; how aloof and reserved he was, and how he received any inquiries as to his obviously bad health with a freezing hostility that gave the inquirers a ruffled sense of tactlessness.
 
Willie broke in to say that he and I were going to give some political dinners in London and would ask Parnell, though he was sure he would not come. The O'Gorman Mahon paid some idle compliment, but I was not interested particularly in their stories of Parnell, though I mentally decided that if I gave any dinners to the Irish Party for Willie I would make a point of getting Parnell.
 
On the 26th of April the members of the Irish Party met in Dublin to elect a chairman, and the meeting was adjourned without coming to a decision, but in May Mr. Parnell was chosen as leader. Willie voted for him, with twenty-two others, and telegraphed to me to say that he had done so, but feared that Mr. Parnell might be too "advanced." The fact was that many people admired steady-going William Shaw, the then chairman, as being very "safe," and doubted whither their allegiance to Mr. Parnell would lead them. Years after, when their politics had diverged, Mr. Parnell said: "I was right when I said in '80, as Willie got up on that platform at Ennis, dressed to kill, that he was just the man we did not want in the Party."
 
After the meeting of Parliament Willie was insistent that I should give some dinner parties in London, and, as his rooms were too small for this purpose, we arranged to have a couple of private rooms at Thomas's Hotel—my old haunt in Berkeley Square. There were no ladies' clubs in those days, but this hotel served me for many years as well as such a club could have done.
 
{58}
We gave several dinners, and to each of them I asked Mr. Parnell. Among the first to come were Mr. Justin McCarthy (the elder), Colonel Colthurst, Richard Power, Colonel Nolan, and several others; but—in spite of his acceptance of the invitation—Mr. Parnell did not come. Someone alluded to the "vacant chair," and laughingly defied me to fill it; the rest of our guests took up the tale and vied with each other in tales of the inaccessibility of Parnell, of how he ignored even the invitations of the most important political hostesses in London, and of his dislike of all social intercourse—though he had mixed freely in society in America and Paris before he became a politician for the sake of the Irish poor. I then became determined that I would get Parnell to come, and said, amid laughter and applause: "The uncrowned King of Ireland shall sit in that chair at the next dinner I give!"
 
One bright sunny day when the House was sitting I drove, accompanied by my sister, Mrs. Steele (who had a house in Buckingham Gate), to the House of Commons and sent in a card asking Mr. Parnell to come out and speak to us in Palace Yard.
 
He came out, a tall, gaunt figure, thin and deadly pale. He looked straight at me smiling, and his curiously burning eyes looked into mine with a wondering intentness that threw into my brain the sudden thought: "This man is wonderful—and different."
 
I asked him why he had not answered my last invitation to dinner, and if nothing would induce him to come. He answered that he had not opened his letters for days, but if I would let him, he would come to dinner directly he returned from Paris, where he had to go for his sister's wedding.
 
{59}
In leaning forward in the cab to say good-bye a rose I was wearing in my bodice fell out on to my skirt. He picked it up and, touching it lightly with his lips, placed it in his button-hole.
 
This rose I found long years afterwards done up in an envelope, with my name and the date, among his most private papers, and when he died I laid it upon his heart.
 
This is the first letter I had from Mr. Parnell:—
 
 
 
LONDON,
    July 17, 1880.
MY DEAR MRS. O'SHEA,—We have all been in such a "disturbed" condition lately that I have been quite unable to wander further from here than a radius of about one hundred paces allons. And this notwithstanding the powerful attractions which have been tending to seduce me from my duty towards my country in the direction of Thomas's Hotel.
 
I am going over to Paris on Monday evening or Tuesday morning to attend my sister's wedding, and on my return will write you again and ask for an opportunity of seeing you.—Yours very truly, CHAS. S. PARNELL.
 
 
 
On his return from Paris Mr. Parnell wrote to me, and again we asked him to dinner, letting him name his own date. We thought he would like a quiet dinner, and invited only my sister, Mrs. Steele, my nephew, Sir Matthew Wood, Mr. Justin McCarthy, and a couple of others whose names I forget. On receiving his reply accepting the invitation for the following Friday, we engaged a box at the Gaiety Theatre—where Marion Hood was acting (for whom I had a great admiration)—as we thought it would be a relief to the "Leader" to get away from politics for once.
 
On the day of the dinner I got this note:—
 
 
 
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HOUSE OF COMMONS,
    Friday.
MY DEAR MRS. O'SHEA,—I dined with the Blakes on Wednesday, and by the time dinner was over it was too late to go to the meeting—the Post Office is all right here.
 
I cannot imagine who originated the paragraph. I have certainly made no arrangements up to the present to go either to Ireland or America or announced any intention to anybody.—Yours, CHAS. S. PARNELL.
 
 
 
He arrived late, but apologetic, and was looking painfully ill and white, the only life-light in his face being given by the fathomless eyes of rich brown, varying to the brilliance of flame. The depth of expression and sudden fire of his eyes held me to the day of his death.
 
We had a pleasant dinner, talking of small nothings, and, avoiding the controversial subject of politics, Mr. Parnell directed most of his conv............