It happened some long time after the family had been settled in the dingy London apartments and, in accordance with his usual practice, the Doctor had taken his little daughter to walk about London—a never-failing source of delight to her, both then and in later life.
“One day”—her own description of the event is so expressive and circumstantial—“he took me into a not very tempting-looking place, which was, as I speedily found, a lottery-office. It was my birthday, and I was ten years old. An Irish lottery was upon the point of being drawn, and he desired me to choose one out of several bits of printed paper (I did not then know their significance) that lay upon the counter.
“‘Choose which number you like best,’ said the dear papa, ‘and that shall be your birthday present.’
“I immediately selected one, and put it into his hand; No. 2,224.
“‘Ah!’ said my father, examining it, ‘you must choose again. I want to buy a whole ticket; and this is only a quarter. Choose again, my pet.’
“‘No, dear papa, I like this one best.’
“‘Here is the next number,’ interposed the lottery-office keeper, ‘No. 2,223.’
“‘Ay,’ said my father, ‘that will do just as well. Will it not, Mary? We’ll take that.’
“‘No!’ returned I obstinately; ‘that won’t do. This is my birthday, you know, papa, and I am ten years old. Cast up my number, and you’ll find that makes ten. The other is only nine.’
“My father, superstitious like all speculators, struck with my pertinacity and with the reason I gave, which he liked none the less because the ground of preference was tolerably unreasonable, resisted the attempt of the office-keeper to tempt me by different tickets, and we had nearly left the shop without a purchase, when the clerk, who had been examining different desks and drawers, said to his principal:—