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My beloved mother told me I was born one Thursday morning early, unfashionably and uncomfortably early; on the 28th of March. The year of Grace of my advent, which I have no means to verify, has been put down in almanacs and newspaper records anywhere between 1845 and 1860. As my dear father did not happen to be married until 1848-49, and I was the youngest but one of a moderately numerous family, the former date suggests a situation which happily, no less an authority than Ulster King-at-arms contradicts; the latter date I know to be wrong—unhappily! My nurse, bless her heart, when to this day, I remember with the tenderest feelings of undying affection, always impressed upon me the legend that I was "found in a band-box under a cabbage." Dear, deceitful soul—rest in peace!

So, you see, even in my earliest childhood, my mind was sorely puzzled to discriminate between fiction and fact. I must say, the picture I conjured of myself, wrapped in beautiful clean tissue-paper, tied up with a lovely pink ribbon, or possibly a blue one, reclining in a pure white band-box under the shade of a dew besprinkled cabbage, was intensely alluring.

I never could settle in my mind why the cabbage was selected by "Willie," my nurse, and I ventured to question the genus of the plant that sheltered my discovery.