Mr Irons was a neighbour of the family of Mr William Wade whom Helen was visiting in  Hulton, Pennsylvania. As Mr Irons was a good Latin scholar, it was arranged that Helen would study under him. Helen remembered him as a man of rare, sweet nature and of wide experience. He taught her Latin grammar principally but he would often help her in arithmetic which she found troublesome and uninteresting. Mr Irons also read Tennyson's 'In Memoriam' apart from many other books from a critical perspective. She learned for the first time to know an author, to recognize his style in a way she could recognize the clasp of a friend's hand.