to the neighbourhood, standing once more on the
well-rubbed lawn of our old garden, where some of my earliest
recollections were of subjecting them to treatment such as I
considered appropriate to my own well-established character of
robber, tying them to trees to the prejudice of their white frocks,
and otherwise misbehaving myself in the funny old days, before I went
to school and became a son of gentlemen only. I have never been able,
in fact I have never tried, to tell which of the three I really liked
best. And if the severer usefulness and domesticity of the eldest
girl, with her quiet art-colours, and broad, brave forehead as pale
as the white roses that clouded the garden, if these maturer
qualities in Nina demanded my respect more than the levity of the
others, I fear they did not prevent me feeling an almost equal tide
of affection towards the sleepy acumen and ingrained sense of humour
of Ida, the second girl and book-reader for the family: or Violet, a
veritably delightful child, with a temper as formless and erratic as
her tempest of red hair.

"What old memories this garden calls up," said Nina, who like many
essentially simple and direct people, had a strong dash of sentiment
and a strong penchant for being her own emotional pint-stoup on the
traditional subjects and occasions. "I remember so well coming here
in a new pink frock when I was a little girl. It wasn't so new when
I went away."

"I certainly must have been a brute," I replied. "But I have
endeavoured to make a lifetime atone for my early conduct." And
I fell to thinking how even Nina, miracle of diligence and
self-effacement, remembered a new pink frock across the abyss of
the years. . . . Walking with my old friends round the garden, I
found in every earth-plot and tree-root the arenas of an active
and adventurous life in early boyhood. . . .*

[* Unpublished fragment.]

Edward Chesterton was a Liberal politically and what has been called
a Liberal Christian religiously. When the family went to
church--which happened very seldom--it was to listen to the sermons
of Stopford Brooke. Some twenty years later, Cecil was to remark with
amusement that he had as a small boy heard every part of the teaching
now (1908) being set out by R. J. Campbell under the title, "The New
Religion." The Chesterton Liberalism entered into the view of history
given to their c