f Norris's family. Mrs. Norris, as I have
said, was a native of Widford, where she had known Mrs. Field, Lamb's
grandmother. With her son Richard, who was deaf and peculiar, Mrs.
Norris moved to Widford again, where the daughters, Miss Betsy and Miss
Jane, had opened a school--Goddard House; which they retained until a
legacy restored the family prosperity. Soon after that they both
married, each a farmer named Tween. They survived until quite recently.

Mrs. Coe, an old scholar at the Misses Morris's school in the twenties,
gave me, in 1902, some reminiscences of those days, from which I quote a
passage or so:--

When he joined the Norrises' dinner-table he kept every one
laughing. Mr. Richard sat at one end, and some of the school
children would be there too. One day Mr. Lamb gave every one a fancy
name all round the table, and made a verse on each. "You are
so-and-so," he said, "and you are so-and-so," adding the rhyme.
"What's he saying? What are you laughing at?" Mr. Richard asked
testily, for he was short-tempered. Miss Betsy explained the joke to
him, and Mr. Lamb, coming to his turn, said--only he said it in
verse--"Now, Dick, it's your turn. I shall call you Gruborum;
because all you think of is your food and your stomach." Mr. Richard
pushed back his chair in a rage and stamped out of the room. "Now
I've done it," said Mr. Lamb: "I must go and make friends with my
old chum. Give me a large plate of pudding to take to him." When he
came back he said, "It's all right. I thought the pudding would do
it." Mr. Lamb and Mr. Richard never got on very well, and Mr.
Richard didn't like his teasing ways at all; but Mr. Lamb often went
for long walks with him, because no one else would. He did many kind
things like that.

There used to be a half-holiday when Mr. Lamb came, partly because
he would force his way into the schoolroom and make seriousness
impossible. His head would suddenly appear at the door in the midst
of lessons, with "Well, Betsy! How do, Jane?" "O, Mr. Lamb!" they
would say, and that was the end of work for that day. He was really
rather naughty with the children. One of his tricks was to teach
them a new kind of catechism (Mrs. Coe does not remember it, but we
may rest assured, I fear, that it was secular), and he made a great
fuss with Lizzie Hunt for her skill in saying the Lord's Prayer