CHAPTER VIII.
AT WORK.
From this sketch of the inner sources of action let me turn to the actions themselves, and see how the outer life was led which fed itself at these springs.
I have said that the friendship between Mr.Bradlaugh and myself dated from our first meeting, and a few days after our talk in Turner Street he came down to see me at Norwood.

It was characteristic of the man that he refused my first invitation, and bade me to think well ere I asked him to my house.

He told me that he was so hated by English society that any friend of his would be certain to suffer, and that I should pay heavily for any friendship extended to him.

When, however, I wrote to him, repeating my invitation, and telling him that I had counted the cost, he came to see me.

His words came true; my friendship for him alienated from me even many professed Freethinkers, but the strength and the happiness of it outweighed a thousand times the loss it brought, and never has a shadow of regret touched me that I clasped hands with him in 1874, and won the noblest friend that woman ever had.