n old, bloody-eyed and very
evil-smelling St. Bernard. There was a jackdaw. There was, moreover, an
ambiguous, silent lady that my aunt subsequently decided must be a very
deaf paying guest. Two or three other people had concealed themselves at
our coming and left unfinished teas behind them. Rugs and cushions lay
among the chairs, and two of the latter were, I noted, covered with
Union Jacks.

The vicar introduced us sketchily, and the faded Victorian wife regarded
my aunt with a mixture of conventional scorn and abject respect,
and talked to her in a languid, persistent voice about people in the
neighbourhood whom my aunt could not possibly know.

My aunt received these personalia cheerfully, with her blue eyes
flitting from point to point, and coming back again and again to the
pinched faces of the daughters and the cross upon the eldest's breast.
Encouraged by my aunt's manner, the vicar's wife grew patronising and
kindly, and made it evident that she could do much to bridge the social
gulf between ourselves and the people of family about us.

I had just snatches of that conversation. "Mrs. Merridew brought him
quite a lot of money. Her father, I believe, had been in the Spanish
wine trade--quite a lady though. And after that he fell off his horse
and cracked his brain pan and took to fishing and farming. I'm sure
you'll like to know them. He's most amusing.... The daughter had a
disappointment and went to China as a missionary and got mixed up in a
massacre."...

"The most beautiful silks and things she brought back, you'd hardly
believe!"

"Yes, they gave them to propitiate her. You see, they didn't understand
the difference, and they thought that as they'd been massacring people,
THEY'D be massacred. They didn't understand the difference Christianity
makes."...

"Seven bishops they've had in the family!"

"Married a Papist and was quite lost to them."...

"He failed some dreadful examination and had to go into the militia."...

"So she bit his leg as hard as ever she could and he let go."...

"Had four of his ribs amputated."...

"Caught meningitis and was carried off in a week."

"Had to have a large piece of silver tube let into his throat, and if he
wants to talk he puts his finger on it. It makes him so interesting, I
think. You feel he's sincere somehow. A most charming man in every way."

"Preserved them both in spirits very luckily, and there they are in his
study, though of course he doesn