yielded before her son's children, and gave them all manner of licence
which she would never have allowed even to my sisters and myself, who
stood next in her regard. Two regulations only they must attend to; they
must wipe their shoes well on coming into the house, and they must not
overfeed Mr Pontifex's organ with wind, nor take the pipes out.

By us at the Rectory there was no time so much looked forward to as the
annual visit of the little Pontifexes to Paleham. We came in for some of
the prevailing licence; we went to tea with Mrs Pontifex to meet her
grandchildren, and then our young friends were asked to the Rectory to
have tea with us, and we had what we considered great times. I fell
desperately in love with Alethea, indeed we all fell in love with each
other, plurality and exchange whether of wives or husbands being openly
and unblushingly advocated in the very presence of our nurses. We were
very merry, but it is so long ago that I have forgotten nearly everything
save that we _were_ very merry. Almost the only thing that remains with
me as a permanent impression was the fact that Theobald one day beat his
nurse and teased her, and when she said she should go away cried out,
"You shan't go away--I'll keep you on purpose to torment you."

One winter's morning, however, in the year 1811, we heard the church bell
tolling while we were dressing in the back nursery and were told it was
for old Mrs Pontifex. Our man-servant John told us and added with grim
levity that they were ringing the bell to come and take her away. She
had had a fit of paralysis which had carried her off quite suddenly. It
was very shocking, the more so because our nurse assured us that if God
chose we might all have fits of paralysis ourselves that very day and be
taken straight off to the Day of Judgement. The Day of Judgement indeed,
according to the opinion of those who were most likely to know, would not
under any circumstances be delayed more than a few years longer, and then