ction--the large
teapot with the red roses, the dark blue porridge plates, the glass jar
with the marmalade a rich yellow inside it, the huge loaf with the
soft pieces bursting out between the crusty pieces, the solid square of
butter, so beautiful a colour and marked with a large cow and a tree on
the top (he had seen once in the kitchen the wooden shape with which
the cook made this handsome thing). There were also his own silver mug,
given him at his christening by Canon Trenchard, his godfather, and his
silver spoon, given him on the same occasion by Uncle Samuel.

All these things glittered and glowed in the firelight, and a kettle was
singing on the hob and Martha the canary was singing in her cage in
the window. (No one really knew whether the canary were a lady or a
gentleman, but the name had been Martha after a beloved housemaid, now
married to the gardener, and the sex had followed the name.)

There were also all the other familiar nursery things. The hole in the
Turkey carpet near the bookcase, the rocking-horse, very shiny where you
sit and very Christmas-tree-like as to its tail; the doll's house, now
deserted, because Helen was too old and Mary too clever; the pictures
of "Church on Christmas Morning" (everyone with their mouths very wide
open, singing a Christmas hymn, with holly), "Dignity and Impudence,"
after Landseer, "The Shepherds and the Angels," and "The Charge of the
Light Brigade." So packed was the nursery with history for Jeremy that
it would have taken quite a week to relate it all. There was the
spot where he had bitten the Jampot's fingers, for which deed he had
afterwards been slippered by his father; there the corner where they
stood for punishment (he knew exactly how many ships with sails, how
many ridges of waves, and how many setting suns there were on that
especial piece of corner wallpaper--three ships, twelve ridges, two and
a half suns); there was the place where he had broken the ink bottle
over his shoes and the carpet, there by the window, where Mary had read
to him once when he had toothache, and he had not known whether her
reading or the toothache agonised him the more; and so on, an endless
sequence of sensational history.

His reminiscences were cut short by the appearance of Gladys with the
porridge. Gladys, who was only the between-maid, but was nevertheless
stout, breathless from her climb and the sentiment of the occasion,
produced from a deep pocket a dirty envelop