east that it is not a wrong action.
When thus interpreted, the words _ought_, and _right_ and _wrong_, and
others of that stamp, have a meaning; when otherwise, they have none.

REMINISCENCES OF CHILDHOOD

During my visits to Barking, I used to be my grandmother's bedfellow.
The dinner hour being as early as two o'clock, she had a regular supper,
which was served up in her own sleeping-room; and immediately after
finishing it, she went to bed. Of her supper I was not permitted to
partake, nor was the privation a matter of much regret. I had what I
preferred--a portion of gooseberry pie; hers was a scrag of mutton,
boiled with parsley and butter. I do not remember any variety.

My amusements consisted in building houses with old cards, and sometimes
playing at 'Beat the knave out of doors' with my grandmother. My time of
going to bed was perhaps an hour before hers; but by way of preparation,
I never failed to receive her blessing. Previous to the ceremony, I
underwent a catechetical examination, of which one of the questions was,
"Who were the children that were saved in the fiery furnace?" Answer,
"Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego." But as the examination frequently got
no farther, the word Abednego got associated in my mind with very
agreeable ideas, and it ran through my ears like "Shadrach, Meshach, and
To-bed-we-go," in a sort of pleasant confusion, which is not yet
removed. As I grew in years, I became a fit receptacle for some of my
grandmother's communications, among which the state of her family and
the days of her youth were most prominent.

There hung on the wall, perpetually in view, a sampler, the produce of
the industry and ingenuity of her mother or her grandmother, of which
the subject-matter was the most important of all theologico-human
incidents, the fall of man in Paradise. There was Adam--there was
Eve--and there was the serpent. In these there was much to interest and
amuse me. One thing alone puzzled me; it was the forbidden fruit. The
size was enormous. It was larger than that species of the genus
_Orangeum_ which goes by the name of "the forbidden fruit" in some of
our West India settlements. Its size was not less than that of the outer
shell of a cocoanut. All the rest of the objects were as usual in
_plano_; this was in _alto_, indeed in _altissimo rilievo._ What to make
of it, at a time when my mind was unable to distinguish fictions from
realities, I knew not. The recollection is strong