August the First, 1855, was the seventieth birthday of Aunt Jael.

Moreover, as the Old Maids of Tawborough were seven, six other ladies completed their seventieth year on this self-same day, to wit: Miss Sarah Tombstone, Miss Keturah Crabb, Miss Lucy Clarke, Miss Fanny Baker, with the Misses Glory and Salvation Clinker. When Aunt Jael decided on the astonishing plan of a great dinner party to celebrate the day, by the very nature of things the Other Six figured at the head of her list of prospective guests.

Who else should be invited? This question was lengthily discussed with Grandmother, discussed of course in Aunt Jael's way; i. e. she decreed, Grandmother agreed. The party was to be a representative one, with a worldly element and a spiritual element, a rich element and a poor element, a this-world element and a next-world element. There were four main divisions: first, the Other Six; second The Saints (selected); third, old friends; and fourth—a grudging fourth—relations.

Of the Saints, Aunt Jael invited Mr. Pentecost Dodderidge, the Lord's instrument for her own spiritual regeneration forty years before; Brother Brawn and Brother and Mrs. Quappleworthy; and Brother Quick, he who had once proposed to young Jael Vickary, then the Belle of Tawborough—though Grandmother always averred that his shot at Aunt Jael was at best a ricochet.

After much discussion and more prayer, the Lord guided Aunt Jael's mind to but one solitary Old Friend; a Mr. Royle, churchwarden at the Parish Church, the only friend dating from Jael Vickary's young unsaved days with whom she had kept up, if indeed decorous chats in the market when they chanced to meet might be so considered; for he never came to the house.

Relations were a simpler problem. There were no close ones except the elder brother of my Great-Aunt and Grandmother, my unknown Uncle John, who was too rheumaticky to travel down from London even if Aunt Jael had had a mind to invite him or he to accept her invitation; and my mother's sister and Grandmother's only surviving child, Aunt Martha of Torribridge, with her husband, Uncle Simeon Greeber, whom I had never seen; there was some feud between Aunt Jael and Uncle Simeon, dating from before I can remember, sufficiently formidable to prevent his crossing our threshold for many years, although he lived but eight miles away. Aunt Martha, however, paid us fairly frequent visits. She was a pale thin, indeterminate-looking woman, who impressed me so little that I was often unable to conjure up her face in my imagination; a vague, tired face, in which Grandmother's gentleness had run to feebleness. When her husband was unpleasant with her, which according to Aunt Jael was pretty often, she submitted feebly; when Aunt Jael spent the whole of one of her afternoon visits to Bear Lawn abusing her, she listened feebly. For this one occasion, however, Aunt Jael decided to sacrifice her dislikes to that ancient law by which the family must be represented at all major festivals and feeds. For some time, too, Aunt Martha had been insisting, with all the feebleness of which she was capable, on Mr. Greeber's longing for a reconciliation with his revered aunt by marriage. So he too was invited. The only other askable relative was a niece-in-law of my Grandmother's, the daughter of old Captain Lee's only sister, now a fat widow of forty-five, Mrs. Paradine Pratt. She lived over at Croyde, on three hundred pounds a year of her own; was a Congregationalist, and fond of cats.

The final list thus comprised: Old Maids of Tawborough (including the hostess), seven; Saints, five; Old Friend, one; Relations, three. Total with Grandmother and myself, eighteen. Never before had such a multitude assembled within our doors.

The problems of space and food were next envisaged. The sacred front-room was to be thrown open; there the guests would be entertained before and after the meal. Dinner would of course be served in the back-parlour; by putting the two spare leaves into the table and tacking a smaller table on at one end, Aunt Jael calculated that there would be adequate eating-space and breathing-space for all.

"'Twill be a tight fit though. You, child, will have your meal in the kitchen."

"Then so will I," said my Grandmother.

Aunt Jael was taken aback. She was silent for a moment, casting about for another unreasonable suggestion with which Grandmother would have to disagree; the old trick by which she always strove to pretend that the guilt of cantankerousness was my Grandmother's.

"Glory, of course, will be in her usual stool in the corner."

"Now, sister, don't be foolish—"

"There you go! Disagreeing with everything I say. Whose party is it, mine or yours?..."

Miriam—Miriam who used the Great One's porridge plate as spittoon—was our cook at the time. Sister Briggs, humble little Brother Briggs' humbler little wife, was called in for the day itself as extra hand. "Proud to do it, I know," said Aunt Jael, "and glad of the meal she'll get and the pickings she'll carry away." Aunt Jael held with no nonsense of class-equality, no "all women-are-equal" twaddle. Spiritually the Briggses ranked far above unsaved emperors, or kings who broke not bread. Spiritually, but not socially. So while Brother Brawn and Sister Quappleworthy were summoned to the seats of the mighty in the parlour, Sister Briggs, their co-heiress in salvation, came to the scullery to wash-up at the price of her dinner, a silver shilling and pickings.

Vast preparations went forward: a record Friday's marketing, a record scrubbing and cleaning, a record bustle and fuss.

The great day dawned. Both armchairs had been removed from the back-parlour to the front-parlour to increase the table-space in one and the sitting accommodation in the other. In her familiar chair, therefore, though in an unfamiliar setting, my Great-Aunt sat enthroned: robed in her best black silk, crowned with a splendid cap all of white lace and blue velvet ribbon that I had not seen before, and armed with that stout sceptre I had seen (and felt) from my youth up.

The first arrivals were Aunt Martha and her husband. They came over early from Torribridge, and had arranged to spend the whole day and stay the night with us. I was curious to see Mr. Greeber, as I had never seen an uncle before. Aunt Jael's dislike of him whetted my curiosity, and also of course prejudiced me in his favour. Any such preconceived sympathy fled from me the moment I set eyes on him. Can I have foreseen, half-consciously, that this was the creature to be responsible for the wretchedest moments and the worst emotions of my life? Anyhow, I remember with photographic accuracy every look, every gesture, as he minced through the doorway behind Aunt Martha, springing softly up and down on the ball of the toe, moving quite noiselessly. He was a thin little man, narrow shouldered, small-made in every limb. His face was pallid, without a trace of blood showing in the cheeks. He had a mass of curious honey-coloured hair, that you would have thought picturesque, if it had crowned the head of a pretty woman or a lovely boy. Of the same hue was his pointed little beard. His mouth I did not specially notice till he began speaking, when he moistened his lips with his tongue between every few words and showed how pale and thin and absolutely bloodless they were. His eyes changed a good deal. For a moment, as when they rested on mine and read there my instant dislike, they answered with a moment's stare of hard cruelty, such as blue eyes alone can give; most of the time they rolled shiftily about, chiefly heavenward. His gestures were exaggerated; he bent his head forward, poked it absurdly to one side, and gave a sickly smile—intended to be winning—whenever he spoke. With his soft overdone politeness, his pointed little beard, his gestures, he looked like the traditional Frenchman of caricature; except for his eyes, which whether for the moment cruel or pious, had nothing in common with that amiable creature. He was unhealthy and unpleasant in some undefined way new to my experience. Aunt Jael had a sound judgment after all.

He advanced to greet her, oozingly.

"Good day, good day, dear Miss Vickary. One rejoices that the Lord has watched over you these three-score years and ten; one is thankful, thankful indeed. M'yes. Your kindness, too, in extending one your invitation—believe me, one will not readily forget it! And you too, dear Mrs. Lee, one is pleased to see you, to be sure. So this is the little one! One is well pleased to meet one's little niece."

He chucked me under the chin, saw the expression in my eyes, and never tried the playful experiment again. It was hate at first sight, and he knew it.

Aunt Jael's voice sounded gruff—and honest—enough after the unctuous flow. "Well, good day to 'ee, Simeon Greeber, and make yourself welcome." (Meaning: "You know I dislike you and always shall. Still, now that for once in a way you are in my house, I shall try to put up with you.")

A slight pause, while his eyes wandered piously round the room, encountering everywhere spears, clubs, tomahawks, idols, charms. "What interesting objects! Trophies of the Gospel, one may surmise! Why, surely not, surely not, can that great heathen image in the corner be the same, the selfsame one, as was brought back by one's dear late cousin, Immanuel Greeber, Immanuel Greeber of Tiverton, one's well-loved cousin Immanuel?"

Benamuckee stared impassively. "Yes," said Aunt Jael. "It is the same."

"Ah, what a symbol of folly, what a sign of darkness! The field of foreign labour is, of course, your own special interest in the Lord's work, both yours and dear Mrs. Lee's, is it not? That is well known."

"Yes," replied my Grandmother, "as you know, the child here is dedicated to the Lord's work among the heathen." I puffed inwardly.

"What an honour, ah, what an honour! For oneself, one confesses, the home field comes nearest to one's heart; to one's earnest, if humble endeavours. M'yes. There is sad darkness far away, in the heathen continents and pagan isles, one knows, one knows: but here in England among one's nominal Christians, there is, alas, greater darkness still. Ah, these half-believers, these almost-persuaded Christians!—Once one was one oneself. So one knows. One was a Baptist, as you know, dear Sisters; one hardened one's heart against the ministrations of the Saints. Then one blessed day, the scales fell from one's eyes—one saw the error of one's ways—and one joined the one true flock."

I disliked him curiously as he murmured and whispered away in a soft treacly flow punctuated only by sticky lip-moistenings and heavenward sniffs; this miracle-man who never ever used the best beloved pronoun of all the human race.

His utterance was cut short by new arrivals. Grandmother received them in the hall, saw to the hat and coat doffing, and ushered them into the throne-room. I noted the slight variations in my Great-Aunt's manner as she motioned the different guests to chairs and accepted their congratulations and good wishes. With Mr. Pentecost Dodderidge she was regal.

"Thank 'ee, we are old friends, you and I. Yes, thanks be to the Lord. I'm well enough. And you? How are 'ee?"

"I am burdened this morning," he said, with that kingly glance all round him to see that all his subjects were attentive, which we knew to herald some pearl of godly epigram. "Yes, I am burdened this morning."

"Burdened?" echoed Aunt Jael.

"Burdened?" echoed my Grandmother.

"Yes, dear sisters. 'He daily loadeth us with benefits.' Psalm sixty-eight, nineteen."

This was the old patriarch's immemorial trick: to make some statement that was certain to provoke query, and then to explain its apparent paradox by swift quotation from the word of God. A later generation might think his method crude, his texts subtly irrelevant; but there is no question that the Saints, including my Grandmother and Great-Aunt, admired the godly wit and treasured all the texts. So when "the pilgrim patriarch of Tawborough" came up to me in the corner from which I was staring at him, I felt a high sense of pleasure and importance.

"Well, well, and how is this little sapling in the Lord's vineyard?" Paternally, pontifically, he patted my head.

"Well enough, thank 'ee," replied my Grandmother for me, "but not always a good little handmaiden for Him. She likes better to waste her time sitting and doing nothing than mending her socks or studying the Word. She could testify by a happier frame of mind and busier fingers in the house and by speaking more freely of the things of the Lord. Would you not urge her, Brother, even at this tender age to do something for the Master?"

"No, I would not." Query invited, epigram looming ahead.

"Then what would you do?" asked my Grandmother.

"I would recommend her to do 'all things' for the Master. Titus, two, nine."

Mr. Royle stumped in, a fat short old man, with a cheerful unsaintly countenance and a general air of wealth and prosperity that I could put down to nothing definite except a heavy gold watch chain which spanned the upper slopes of his enormous stomach. His only rival in this particular quarter of the body was Mrs. Paradine Pratt. These two alone, who wandered wearily outside the fold in the darkness of Congregationalism and the Church of England, had contrived to put on plenteous flesh. Was there some subtle hostility, I recollect asking myself, between corpulence and conversion?

The before-dinner conversation was preoccupied and scanty. Brother Quappleworthy came alone, as Sister Quappleworthy was "not—ah—too well."

The company repaired to the dining-room. Mr. Pentecost Dodderidge pronounced the Blessing, and we all sat down to do justice to that mighty meal. How odd this great assembly seemed in our austere room, now for once looking reasonably well filled; I could see that the experience was as odd to most of the guests as it was to me. Great feasts were not within the ordered course of their spare and godly lives. There was a certain constraint around the table, quite unmistakable, marked by loud and sudden silences.

This is how we sat:

(Note that the masculine element was stronger, both in quality and quantity, at Aunt Jael's end of the table than at ours. I was put on the music stool, by my Grandmother's side at the doorway end of the table, flanked by Glory on the left. Salvation had pleaded for a place by dear beloved Brother Brawn; Aunt Jael condescended so far as to place them nearly opposite each other, but Brother Brawn was too nervous of his exposed right flank to allow his utterances to be a feast of good things. He could not forget the piece Miss Crabb had—long ago—bitten out of his beard.)

It was a royal spread. In the old West Country fashion, of course—no new-fangled foreign nonsense or London messes. First appeared a great roast goose, a very queen of geese, turning the scale at fifteen pounds if an ounce. Her entourage included green peas, a vegetable marrow with white sauce, gravy, and an onion stuffing beyond the power of my poor pen to praise. Aunt Jael carved the monster, apportioning of course the choicest tit-bits to herself, the next choicest to Mr. Royle and Pentecost Dodderidge, the next choicest to Brother Quappleworthy, and so on; the quality of your portion varying with your position in Aunt Jael's esteem. Thus I had a rather gristly piece of leg, and Miss Salvation some scraggy side-issues with that part more politely imagined in the mind's eye than mentioned on paper. The second course was a great squab pie, made on Aunt Jael's own recipe: slices of apple and second-cooked mutton alternately, six layers deep, a sprinkling of shredded onion, with plenty of salt and Demerara sugar, pepper and cloves, a covering of delicious pie-crust. The third meat course (cold) comprised a fine ham and one of Mrs. Cheese's special beef and ham rolls covered with bread crumbs and as big as a large polony: with pickled onions (Aunt Jael's) and pickled plums (Grandmother's), to help them down. For Sweets, which honest folk call pudding, you could choose between dear little cherry tartlets, made in our best shell-shaped patty-pans, all crinkled-edged; or stewed raspberries and black currants with junket and Devonshire cream, this fourfold alternative being my choice and (to this day) my own private notion of what they eat in heaven. On, on the banquet rolled: Cheddar cheese, biscuits, nuts, pomegranates, and home-made apple ginger. In contrast with Aunt Jael's closeness and our every-day plain living, this sardanapalan spread was the more sensational. The drinks were sherry, raspberry vinegar and water.

My Great-Aunt was in a rarely serene mood, enthroned far away at the head of the table, with white-haired Pentecost on her right hand and bald-headed Mr. Royle on her left. Salvation chewed enjoyingly; the fork method of picking your teeth at table struck me, uninstructed as I was, as somehow unsuitable for an important social gathering. She remarked in a noisy whisper to Glory that it was just as well we'd begun at last as she was feeling "turrible leer."[1] Mrs. Paradine panted as she ate; her damp and diminutive handkerchief was applied incessantly, often only just in time to prevent a trickling on to her immense bombazine bosom. I spied Uncle Simeon with a higher quality of curiosity. He knew I was watching him. In return he began craftily eyeing me when I was looking elsewhere: I pretended I was unaware of his scrutiny. In this specially feminine habit I was already an adept; and I feel sure I deceived Uncle Simeon, who stared his fill. When, however, I took my turn at staring, and he tried the same pretence, he failed utterly to deceive me, for I could see his eyelids twitch, while the faintest flush came to his pallid cheeks.

I cannot pretend to remember much of the conversation, though I could invent it and be near enough the truth. The awkward silences were still apparent. My explanation of it is this: that everybody present (for all but two were Saints) was quite unused to meet together except for godly discoursings. Though it was the creed they believed (and practised) to testify of holy things in season and out of season, yet all dimly felt that today was somehow exceptional, that it was neither necessary nor suitable to preach to each other over roast goose and squab pie Christ and Him crucified. Yet what other topics had they? Hence the uneasy quiet, which the clatter of knives and forks and the orchestration accompanying Miss Glory's curious methods of absorbing nourishment only seemed to heighten. What a slobbering and sipping and a spluttering and a splashing! The liquid mush consisting of tiny morsels of goose-meat (chopped up by Grandmother) and scraps of soft bread mixed with stuffing and sauce and soaked in gravy, which she was now administering to herself with her wooden spoon, offered good scope for her talent; though being of a greater consistency than her usual goat's milk and rusks, it did not allow her to display her supreme effects. Even so, she made herself heard by her far-away hostess. A warning look shot from the table-head:—"Quieter there, or to the corner yer go!" it said.

For a moment Glory subsided, but this made the general silence only more obvious and painful. Aunt Jael realized that though good eating is the object of a dinner, good talk is the condition of a successful one. She stooped to conquer, broke the last canon of hostship, and as the great squab pie was placed before her, praised it blatantly. The success was instantaneous. Echoes of praise rang up the table. "Ay indeed!—a fine one that!—you're right, Sister Vickary!"—and what not. Two tributes distinguished themselves, as you might expect.

"There's squab pie and squab pie," said Miss Salvation. "This is squab pie," and, last of all, when every one else had tired of eulogy, the still small voice: "One wonders if one ever tasted anything one liked so well."

Tongues were at last set wagging. Different recipes were discussed and their respective merits compared. Some thought the mutton should be fresh, others that second-cooked gave the best flavour; some that moist white sugar cooked better than Demerara, others that you should use hardly any sugar at all, as a squab pie wasn't a sweet pie after all, now was it? Some thought it was, however: the idea of cooking apples without sugar, mutton or no mutton! Then the puff-paste issue was raised, and here the gentlemen joined in, as this was a question of taste rather than technique. Gradually the conversation veered to the wider topic of food in general; and before long every one present was exchanging tender confidences in that most intimate form of self-revelation: "one's" favourite things to eat. Even Grandmother joined in. I alone said nothing, being under strictest orders "to be seen and not heard." (I felt the restraint keenly, for I was proud of my own catalogue, viz:—Devonshire cream, whortleberry jam, mussels, tripe and treacle; then pancakes, potato-pie (the browned part), sage stuffing, seed-cake, junket, crab, apple-dumpling, bread-and-butter-pudding, especially the "outside," brawn, cockles, and black-currant jam.)

I must have been reflecting on my own pets rather than hearkening to the praise of other people's, for the conversation had changed, and they were discussing "degrees." One of my favourite psalms, the 121st, I will lift up mine eyes to the hills, was described in the Bible as "A Song of Degrees," and I had always wondered what they were.

"Degrees, degrees? That means puttin' letters after yer name, does it? Wull, then"—Salvation fumbled in her reticule, always a veritable mine of papers, letters, photographs of herself, and other piÈces d'identitÉ (as though she lived under the fear of perpetual arrest) and produced triumphantly an addressed envelope—"There now!" It was passed round that all might read this legend:

Miss Salvation Clinker,
Sinner Saved by Grace,
High Street,
Tawborough,
N. Devon.

"What splendid testimony for the postman, zes I, what splendid testimony for the postman!"

"But—" Brother Quappleworthy alone dared a "but," for had not he alone among the Saints achieved the honour of putting real letters after your name? He smiled; with maybe a dash of quiet superiority, with just a seasoning of annoyance, just a nice Christian seasoning, mark you, nothing more. "But—is that a real degree, sister?"

"Rale degree? 'Course 'tis: S.S.G.—Sinner Saved by Grace. None o' yer cheap truck: S.S.G.!"

"Yes, yes; but like B.A. for instance, dear sister?"

"B.A.? I'm a B.A. too."

"You a B.A.?" echoed voices.

"Yes: Born Again!" shouting.

"Quite so, quite so, please God so are we all. But I am talking of earthly degrees."

"Are yer? Wull, I'm a-talking uv 'eavenly ones!"

"There's B.B. too," put in little Lucy Clarke, nervously seeking to pour oil on troubled waters, "two B's arter your name, I think it is, tho' mebbe I'm wrong."

"Two B's or not two B's!" observed Mr. Royle, and laughed loudly when he found that no one else did. I wondered why. I doubt if any one present saw the point except my Great-Aunt and Grandmother and Brother Quappleworthy. It was many years before I did.

"Good, sir, good," said the latter worldlily, "a quotation from the works of Shakespeare, if I mistake not."

"Shakespeare!" shrieked Miss Salvation, as though uttering some lewd word, "I'm surprised at 'ee, 'avin' the chick to mention such a sinner's name in a Christian 'ouse; an 'eathen play-actin' sinner, now wallerin' in everlastin' torment for his sins."

"How do you know he is?" asked my Grandmother quietly.

"And 'ow du 'ee know 'e isn't? A Papis' too."

Blessed are the peacemakers, so Lucy Clarke tried again.

"I don't think 'tis B.B. at all after all; 'tis D.D., two D's arter your name in a manner o' spaikin'."

"Yes, it's D.D.," said Aunt Jael. "All the big preachers in the Establishment print it after their names; not but what their preaching is poor enough. Letters after your name don't put either a tongue into your head or the knowledge of God into your heart. I've no patience with D.D.'s."

"None," echoed the table.

"Not so," corrected Mr. Pentecost Dodderidge. "It is a great pity there are so few D.D.'s."

"Surely not!" exclaimed the table, awaiting pearls.

"Yes, we want more Down in the Dust. Psalm one hundred and nineteen, verse twenty-five. Then we would also have more 'quickened according to Thy Word.'"

A pause, forced by the awkward finality of the patriarch's utterance.

"Er—let me see," said Mr. Royle to Brother Quappleworthy, "you are an M.A. of the University of Oxford, are you not, sir?"

"Yes," was the reply, spoken with just a seasoning of pardonable pride, just a Christian seasoning, mark you, nothing more. "Yes" (confidentially) "as a matter of fact I am. I took my degree, second-class honours, in the classics: 'Greats' as we say—"

"Did yer?" interrogated Salvation (for pride is a deadly sin and a weed that must be checked, lest it grow apace). "Wull, I took my degree in summat greater, in God's great Scheme o' Salvation, and I passed with first-class honners, glory be! Unuvursity uv Oxvurrd eh? My schoolin' 'as been in the Unuvursity uv God!"

* * * * * * *

After that I recollect nothing clearly till all the guests, save Uncle Simeon and Aunt Martha, were gone, and late in the evening we sat talking in the unfamiliar idol-haunted dusk of the front parlour. I can feel again as I write the heat of that stuffy August night, and hear Aunt Jael's and Uncle Simeon's voices engaged in the talk that is stamped indelibly on my mind. I recall the scene most intimately when the same external circumstances recur. The heavy-laden atmosphere of a hot August evening, at that still murmurous moment when twilight is yielding to night—the smell, the touch, the impalpable feel of the atmosphere—always brings back to me every phase and pulse of my feelings as I sat listening to the warfare of deep raucous voice and soft honeyed one. The memory of the senses far transcends the memory of the mind. Memory in its most intimate possessions is physical.

Though mental too. In this particular instance, quite apart from any physical aid to memory that atmosphere brings, I remember, verbally, almost all that was said. It is odd that while for stretches of whole months I can often fill in but the dimmest background of my early days, at other times I retain the fullest details of a long and intricate conversation, with the gestures of the speakers and the very words they used. The explanation is to be found partly, I think, in the extreme monotony of my life and the uncommonly vivid impression which any break in the monotony always made; so that this record tends to be a stringing-together of the odd and outstanding events rather than an even and continuous narration of my "early life"; for it was a life of landmarks. But the chief explanation of the uncanny degree to which I remember certain particular scenes lies in my nightly "rehearsals." If there had been any scene or words of special interest in the day's round—if I had observed a new phenomenon (such as a Madonna or a gold watch-chain)—if I had heard a new word (like University) or had new light shed on an old one (like Degrees)—if in short the day had yielded any new fact or idea, the same night saw it deliberately stored in my mind; a treasure-house—a lumber-room—which stood open to all comers. Every night, as soon as I was in bed and my Grandmother had blown out the candle and closed the door behind her, I began. I thought my way through the day, from the moment I had risen onwards. Every new notion or notable event, I recalled, re-lived, and received into the fellowship of things I knew, felt and remembered; into myself. I had also weekly, monthly and yearly revisions.

This seventieth birthday of Aunt Jael's was a red-letter day. My emotions as I lay awake watching with memory's eye that curious dinner party, with its wealth of new food, new faces, new situations, new sensations and new talk, were of the same order as those of a playgoer who lives over in his mind the pleasures of a new and brilliant drama he has witnessed. New persons and new conversations were my favourite acquisitions; these were in the strict sense dramatic, and they approached most nearly the other habit of my inner life—my visualizings and imaginings—of which indeed they furnished the raw material. I would only memorize conversations from the point at which they began to interest me; hence, even when I remember them best, they begin suddenly, and causelessly.

So it was with the conversation on that memorable evening. I fancy Aunt Jael and Uncle Simeon had already been talking for some time—probably on the things of the Lord, which were not new and not dramatic—but I recall nothing until Uncle Simeon was well set in a review of his life; his holy, if humble life.

"M'yes, ah yes, the Lord found it good to try one's faith; from the very day on which one saw the error of one's ways, and the scales fell from one's eyes, and one closed with God's gracious offer, from that very day the Lord found it good to extend His hand in chastisement and to visit one with trials and afflictions. One bowed one's head: but it was a sore trial for one's faith, one's earnest, if humble, faith. First one's sister passed away, one's dear sister Rosa. Then came one's business troubles, one's ill health, one's grave illness. Last of all one's dear old father went before—"

"Your brother too," interrupted my Great-Aunt. "You don't mention him; and he was the best of the Greebers, from all accounts."

"Ah, surely not, surely not?" ignoring the main point of the interruption, "what of Immanuel Greeber, who gave you these glorious trophies of the field of missionary labour, one's well-loved cousin Immanuel?"

"There was some mystery about his death," pursued she, ignoring red-herring missionaries. "They never really knew how he died. Immanuel told me. He went to lie down in his bed one afternoon, saying he felt sick, and within the hour he was dead."

"Ah, yes," sighed Uncle Simeon, passing his hand over his brow in anguish, "one had not spoken of him; one could not; one's love was too tender. Heart-failure, one thought oneself. M'yes." His head m'yessed sadly to and fro.

"More like something he'd been eating," suggested my Grandmother.

"Too sudden for that," objected Aunt Jael. "No bad food could kill you so sudden. 'Twas something a deal quicker than bad food; more mysterious, folk said."

"Poison," said I.

I was staggered at the sound of my own voice. All day I had been mute, observing so obediently Aunt Jael's "To be seen and not heard" mandate that she had been almost annoyed. Listening was more remunerative than talking; it yielded the wealth for my lonely talks with myself. I think it was that in my interest in this mysterious death I forgot I was not alone; and so uttered aloud the word "Poison" that leapt absurdly to my mind.

The effect on Uncle Simeon's face amazed me.

His look of meek head-nodding sorrow gave place to one of such unmistakable guilt that the most monstrous suspicions seized me; nor did they disappear when guilt changed to fear, then fear to hate; still less when hate in its turn gave place to the meek accustomed mask. Mask it was, for I had seen him deliberately twitch the muscles of his face back into position. From that moment, and with no other evidence than a few seconds' change of expression, in which my eyes might have been deceiving me, I believed him a murderer.

Grandmother and Aunt Jael saw nothing of this. The first was too short-sighted—the room was nearly dark, and no candle had been lighted—the second was too busy for the moment rating me for breaking laws and talking "outrageous nonsense" to keep her eyes on him.

This gave him time to twitch the muscles of his brain and tongue back into position also.

"Anyway, whatever the sad cause of his earthly death, one may rejoice that he went to be with the Lord."

"Yes, and that he left all his money to you. Leastways there was no will found, and you were next of kin. That helped to console you a little, maybe."

"Miss Vickary!"

"Yes, more than a little, too. It left you enough to close your shop in Bristol and do nothing ever since."

"Nothing, Miss Vickary, nothing? All one's years of hard, if humble, toil in the Lord's vineyard, one's ministrations to the Saints—nothing? And poor Joseph's wealth, it was but a modest sum—"

"So modest no one's ever heard. It's mock poverty yours, and you know it."

"But one's humble manner of life should show—"

"Folk as are mean aren't always poor."

"Aunt!" pleaded Martha feebly.

"Mean; dear Miss Vickary, may you one day regret that unjust word. Far be it from one to speak of all that one has given to the gospel work in Torribridge, of all that one has lent to the Lord. Yet what are worldly riches? One cares only for the unsearchable riches of Christ. What are the earthly gifts one may have given away? One has given to many a greater gift far. Not only the knowledge of Salvation, but a Christian deed here, a helping hand there—"

"Open sepulchre! Helping hand—like when Rachel and Christian lay dying, and you forbade Martha to leave Torribridge even for a few hours to come and help her mother. Let your wife's mother half kill herself, and her brother and sister crawl into their graves before you'd let her move. 'Couldn't spare her' from the side of yer 'dear little son'—ugly little brat, I'm glad you've not brought him here today."

Now there was a spice of righteous protest in the meek voice. "Pray what has one's poor little son done to be so spoken of? Or one's dear wife to hear him so spoken of?"

Martha was silently wiping her eyes. Aunt Jael, struggling with temper, made no reply.

"Or oneself to see one's wife so wounded? One has never forgiven oneself for not realizing till alas too late how near the end dear Rachel and dear Christian were; but at the time one's little baby-boy was ailing, and Martha none too strong. One was selfish, perhaps."

"Ay." Temper rising.

"One failed in one's duty to dear Mrs. Lee, because of one's jealous care of one's dear child and wife."

"Fiddlesticks! I know some of your goings-on. Poor Martha!"

"Poor Martha? One fails to understand. If Martha had been treated as poor Rachel's husband treated her; if she had suffered cruelty—adultery—vileness—sin; if one were hounding her to her grave as he hounded poor Rachel; if one had killed her and broken her heart, and then sneered that one could not pay to bury her—"

"The brute," cried Aunt Jael, sidetracked.

His crude attempt to transfer her rising wrath on to the head of another had succeeded. He knew the quality of the memories he evoked.

"The brute; the cruel, fleshly scoundrel!"

"Hush, Aunt," whispered Aunt Martha, "after all it is the Child's father."

I coloured violently, and my heart beat fast. The unfamiliar phrase "Rachel's husband" had conveyed nothing. Now I was throbbing with excitement, curiosity and shame.

"Well, let her know the truth."

"O Mother, plead with Aunt not to talk so!" Aunt Martha was trying to stifle the topic on to which her husband had so successfully emptied the vials of Aunt Jael's wrath. He gave her a "you wait till afterwards" glance that told me a good deal, concentrated though I was on this other overshadowing thing.

"I don't know," said my Grandmother, "leave your Aunt be. The child will have to know it some day; and 'tis the truth." She sighed.

"There you are! If a child has the wickedest beast of a man on earth for her father, the sooner she knows it the better, so that she may mend her ways and turn out a bit different herself. She has more than a spice of his ways about her already. She'd best be told every jot and tittle of the whole story. No one's too young to hear the truth. 'Tis your task though, Hannah. You tell her, if you think fit. But not tonight, it's past the child's bed-time. Be off now! To bed!"

I undressed feverishly, that I might be the sooner in bed to go through all I had heard. I recited hymns rapidly to myself so that I should not think at all till I could do so properly and at peace.

Grandmother came in for her nightly prayer.

"Grandmother, is it true? My father. Who is he? What did he do? Tell me, is it true?"

"Yes, my dear."

"Did he do—all those wicked things?"

"Yes, my dear."

"Will you tell me everything?"

"Yes, my dear, if the Lord so wills. Let us approach the throne of grace and discover His good pleasure."

Down on my knees by her side I watched her as she asked the Almighty whether He willed that the story of my father and mother should be told me. Grandmother was always fair. She did not try to influence the Lord's decision, as Aunt Jael might have done, by giving undue weight in her supplications to the arguments either for or against.

"Dost Thou will that at this tender age she should learn of these sorrows, that they may be sanctified to her for Thy name's sake; or dost Thou ordain that I should wait yet awhile before I speak?"

We waited the Answer. I knew it would be "Yes," I knew it with the sudden instinct that so often served me. Prayer and intuition were indeed sharply commingled in my mind. One was your speaking to God, the other God speaking to you. God is swifter; instinct is swifter than prayer; answer than question.

"Tell the child now? So be it, Lord; since such is the answer that Thou hast vouchsafed."

Then she prayed that the story might be richly blessed to me, and that he whom it chiefly concerned might be given, despite all, contrite heart and true forgiveness.

When she left me to myself and darkness, I was repeating to myself the stinging words I had heard. Cruelty, adultery, vileness, sin—the fleshly scoundrel—he had hounded my mother to her grave, broken her heart—killed her. He my father. I had a father then. It is proof of the gaps in my many-sided visualizings day after day and night after night that I had never thought of this, never even wondered whether I had a father or not.

I did not know how to wait till the morrow. Perhaps they were talking about it downstairs; I jumped out of bed, crept halfway down the stairs, and listened. The front-room door was shut, and though I soon heard that a duologue between Aunt Jael and Uncle Simeon was in progress, I could make out only a few words here and there. My imagination constructed a conversation connected with myself, and somehow too at the same time with Torribridge and Aunt Martha and studies. I did not think much of it at the time, as my ears were hungry for "father" and "mother" only—"Rachel" and "Rachel's husband."

I went back to bed. Early next day Uncle Simeon and Aunt Martha returned to Torribridge.