y and sternly looked into the eyes of the other
churchgoers. We certainly were not brought up in Low Church or
anti-papistical views, and it remains a mystery why we continued to do
anything so unnecessary and uncomfortable.

I have a general impression of coming out of church cold and hungry, and
of seeing the labourers standing about the porch in tall hats and green
or purple smock-frocks. But the chief object of interest was Sir John
Lubbock (the father of the late Lord Avebury), of whom, for no particular
reason, we stood in awe. He made it up to us by coming to church in a
splendid fluffy beaver hat. My recollection is that we often went only
to the afternoon service, which we preferred for its brevity. I have a
clear recollection of our delight when, on rainy Sundays, we escaped
church altogether.

A feature that distinguished Sunday from the rest of the week was our
singular custom of having family prayers on that day only. When we were
growing up we mildly struck at the ceremony, and my mother accordingly
dropped it on finding that the servants took no especial interest in it.

On Sundays we wore our best jackets, but I think that, when church was
over, we put on our usual tunics or blouses of surprising home-made fit.
But I clearly remember climbing (in my Sunday clothes) a holly-tree on a
damp Christmas Day, and meeting my father as I descended green from head
to foot. I remember the occurrence because my father was justly annoyed,
and this impressed the fact on me, since anything approaching anger was
with him almost unknown.

In our blouses we might with impunity cover ourselves with the thick red
clay of our country-side, and this we could always do by playing in a
certain pit where we built clay forts, etc. We used also to run down the
steep ploughed fields, our feet (grown with adhering clay to huge balls)
swinging like pendulums and scattering showers of mud on all sides. Then
we would come cheerfully home, entering by the back door and taking off
our boots as we sat on the kitchen stairs in semi-darkness and surrounded
by pleasant culinary smells.

In later years, when we used to take long winter tramps along our flinty
winding lanes, this unbooting on the back stairs was a prelude to eating
oranges in the dining-room, a feast that took the place of five o'clock
tea--not then invented.

In the early days of which I was speaking, we had schoolroom tea with our
governess, while our parents