the place was a summer-house close by, containing a table,
encrusted with cowry-shells, and seats from which one saw the
distant waters of the bay. At the entrance to this grotto there
was always set a 'snug elbow-chair', destined, I suppose, for the
Rev. Mr. Flaw, or else left there in pious memory of him, since I
cannot recollect whether he was alive or dead.

I delighted in these visits to Mary Flaw. She always received us
with effusion, tripping forward to meet us, and leading us, each
by a hand held high, with a dancing movement which I thought
infinitely graceful, to the cowry-shell bower, where she would
regale us with Devonshire cream and with small hard biscuits that
were like pebbles. The conversation of Mary Flaw was a great
treat to me. I enjoyed its irregularities, its waywardness; it
was like a tune that wandered into several keys. As Mary Grace
Burmington put it, one never knew what dear Mary Flaw would say
next, and that she did not herself know added to the charm. She
had become crazed, poor thing, in consequence of a disappointment
in love, but of course I did not know that, nor that she was
crazed at all. I thought her brilliant and original, and I liked
her very much. In the light of coming events, it would be
affectation were I to pretend that she did not feel a similar
partiality for me.

Miss Flaw was, from the first, devoted to my Father's
ministrations, and it was part of our odd village indulgence that
no one ever dreamed of preventing her from coming to the Room. On
Sunday evenings the bulk of the audience was arranged on forms,
with backs to them, set in the middle of the floor, with a
passage round them, while other forms were placed against the
walls. My Father preached from a lectern, facing the audience. If
darkness came on in the course of the service, Richard Moxhay,
glimmering in his cream-white corduroys, used to go slowly
around, lighting groups of tallow candles by the help of a box of
lucifers. Mary Flaw always assumed the place of honour, on the
left extremity of the front bench, immediately opposite my
Father. Miss Marks and Mary Grace, with me ensconced and almost
buried between them, occupied the right of the same bench. While
the lighting proceeded, Miss Flaw used to direct it from her
seat, silently, by pointing out to Moxhay, who took no notice,
what groups of candles he should light next. She did this just as
the clown in the circus directs the grooms how to move the