Even on those matters modern astrology is not quite reliable--judging from the many blunders made--or else its professors are very badly instructed; but that there is a real science of astrology I have no doubt, and there are some men who are past masters in it.
[Illustration: Horoscope of Annie Besant.] It has always been somewhat of a grievance to me that I was born in London, "within the sound of Bow Bells," when three-quarters of my blood and all my heart are Irish.

My dear mother was of purest Irish descent, and my father was Irish on his mother's side, though belonging to the Devonshire Woods on his father's.

The Woods were yeomen of the sturdy English type, farming their own land in honest, independent fashion.

Of late years they seem to have developed more in the direction of brains, from the time, in fact, that Matthew Wood became Mayor of London town, fought Queen Caroline's battles against her most religious and gracious royal husband, aided the Duke of Kent with no niggard hand, and received a baronetcy for his services from the Duke of Kent's royal daughter.

Since then they have given England a Lord Chancellor in the person of the gentle-hearted and pure-living Lord Hatherley, while others have distinguished themselves in various ways in the service of their country.