And so Hannah the loyal resigned her position as governess, and brother and sister packed up and sailed away in the good ship “Asia” for India.  Among their belongings was a modest library of three thousand volumes, all of which, a wit has said, were read twice through by Macaulay on the outward voyage.  India was safely reached, and Macaulay set himself with his accustomed vigor to learning the language and informing himself as to the actual status of things, in order that he might provide for their betterment.  On account of his grasp on legal matters he was elected Legal Adviser of the Supreme Council.

Everything went well for a year, and then a terrible calamity overtook Macaulay.

His sister was in love.

This seems a good place to explain that Thomas Babington Macaulay himself was never in love.  He had no time for that—­his days were too full of books and practical business to ever waste any time on soft sentiment.

But now he was confronted by a condition, not a theory:  Lord Trevelyan was in love with his sister, and his sister was in love with Lord Trevelyan.  Macaulay might have discovered the fact for himself and saved the lovers the embarrassment of making a confession, had he not been so terribly busy with his books, but Macaulay, like love, was blind—­to some things.

He heard the confession, and wept.

Then he gave the pair his blessing—­there was nothing else to do.

It was not long after the wedding that he discovered he had found a brother instead of having lost a sister; and the sister being very happy, Macaulay was happy, too.  He insisted that they move their effects into his house, and they did so, all living as one happy family.  So the years passed; and when children came Macaulay’s joy was complete.  His heart went out to his sister’s children as though they were his own.  Occasionally the good mother complained that the Legal Adviser of the Supreme Council undid her discipline by indulging the youngsters in things that she had forbidden.  To all of which the Legal Adviser would only laugh, and crawling under the settle would emit many tigerish growls, and the children would scream with terror and delight, and other children, brown-legged, wearing no clothes to speak of, would come trooping in, and together they would manage, after an awful struggle, to capture the tiger, and with some in front and others behind and two or three on his back, would carry him away captive.

One of these children, grown to manhood, Sir George Trevelyan, was destined to write, with the help of his mother, the best life of Macaulay that has ever been written.

The exile did not prove quite so severe as was anticipated; but when in Eighteen Hundred Thirty-eight it was necessary for Lord Trevelyan to return to England, Macaulay, sick at the thought of being left behind, resigned his office and sailed back with the family.

We are told that officeholders seldom die and never resign.  This may be true in the main; but surely there can not be found another instance in history of a man throwing up an office with a fifty-thousand-dollar salary attachment, simply because he could not bear the thought of being separated from his sister’s children.