, and we certainly did not love him the less
for the sharpest flogging he ever gave us. Directly afterwards, he
would meet the culprit in his usual frank, hearty way, and seem to
forget all about the matter.

Our sisters were on the same happy intimate terms with our mother, and
we boys had no secrets with her, or with them either.

Our father used to believe and assert that our family had settled in
Leicestershire before the Conquest, and, in consequence of this notion,
he gave us all old English names or what he supposed to be such. His
own name was Joliffe, and he used to be called by his hunting
associates, the other gentlemen of the county, Jolly Merry. He was not,
I should say, _par excellence_ a fox hunter, though he subscribed to the
county hunt, and frequently followed the hounds; and no one rode better,
nor did any one's voice sound more cheerily on copse or hill side than
did his, as he greeted a friend, or sang out, in the exuberance of his
spirits, a loud tallyho-ho. My name stood sixth in the Family Bible,
and that of Marmaduke had fallen to my lot. We had a Cedric, an
Athelstane, an Egbert, and an Edwin among the boys, and a Bertha, an
Edith, and a Winifred among the girls. We all went to school in our
turns, but though it was a very good school, we did not like it so much
as home. When, however, we got to school, we used to be very jolly, and
if other boys pulled long faces we made round ones and laughed away as
usual. Our school was in Northamptonshire, so that we had not far to
go, and we kept up a very frequent correspondence with home, from which,
in consequence of its vicinity, we received more hampers laden with
cakes and tongues, and pots of jam, and similar comestible articles,
than most of our companions. I do not say that we should not otherwise
have been favourites, but it might have been remarked that the
attentions and willingness to oblige us of our companions increased in
proportion to the size of our hampers, and our readiness to dispense
their contents.

However, I will not dwell on my school life. I imbibed a certain amount
of classical and elementary knowledge of a somewhat miscellaneous
description, and received not a few canings, generally for laughing in
my class at something which tickled my fancy, when I ought not to have
allowed my fancy to be tickled; but altogether my conduct was such that
I believe I was considered to have brought no discredit on the Merry
name or