was. My two sisters, Nelly and Maggie, were respectively eight and six,
and my brother, Fred, was four--six in all.

And by a freak of memory I recollect, too, that at breakfast on the
following morning my father--half-shyly, half-proudly, I
thought--announced the fact of Hugh's birth to the boys whom he had
asked in, as his custom was, to breakfast, and how they offered
embarrassed congratulations, not being sure, I suppose, exactly what the
right phrase was.

Then came the christening, which took place at Sandhurst Church, a mile
or two away, to which we walked by the pine-clad hill of Edgebarrow and
the heathery moorland known as Cock-a-Dobbie. Mr. Parsons was the
clergyman--a little handsome old man, like an abbÈ, with a clear-cut
face and thick white hair. I am afraid that the ceremony had no
religious significance for me at that time, but I was deeply
interested, thought it rather cruel, and was shocked at Hugh's
indecorous outcry. He was called Robert, an old family name, and Hugh,
in honour of St. Hugh of Lincoln, where my father was a Prebendary, and
because he was born on the day before St. Hugh's Feast. And then I
really remember nothing more of him for a time, except for a scene in
the nursery on some wet afternoon when the baby--Robin as he was at
first called--insisted on being included in some game of tents made by
pinning shawls over the tops of chairs, he being then, as always,
perfectly clear what his wishes were, and equally clear that they were
worth attending to and carrying out.

[Illustration: _Photo by Hills & Saunders_

THE MASTER'S LODGE, WELLINGTON COLLEGE, 1868