presents by himself and then stolen out and said "Thank you" to the
lot of them and have done with it.

He watched the breakfast-table with increasing satisfaction--the
large teapot with the red roses, the dark blue porridge plates, the
glass jar with the marmalade a rich yellow inside it, the huge loaf
with the soft pieces bursting out between the crusty pieces, the
solid square of butter, so beautiful a colour and marked with a
large cow and a tree on the top (he had seen once in the kitchen the
wooden shape with which the cook made this handsome thing). There
were also his own silver mug, given him at his christening by Canon
Trenchard, his godfather, and his silver spoon, given him on the
same occasion by Uncle Samuel.

All these things glittered and glowed in the firelight, and a kettle
was singing on the hob and Martha the canary was singing in her cage
in the window. (No one really knew whether the canary were a lady or
a gentleman, but the name had been Martha after a beloved housemaid,
now married to the gardener, and the sex had followed the name.)

There were also all the other familiar nursery things. The hole in
the Turkey carpet near the bookcase, the rocking-horse, very shiny
where you sit and very Christmas- tree-like as to its tail; the
doll's house, now deserted, because Helen was too old and Mary too
clever; the pictures of "Church on Christmas Morning" (everyone with
their mouths very wide open, singing a Christmas hymn, with holly),
"Dignity and Impudence," after Landseer, "The Shepherds and the
Angels," and "The Charge of the Light Brigade." So packed was the
nursery with history for Jeremy that it would have taken quite a
week to relate it all. There was the spot where he had bitten the