country we traversed (which was very wild and pretty), and
because I was thrown into companionship with Mr Holdsworth, who
held the position of hero in my boyish mind. He was a young man
of five-and-twenty or so, and was in a station above mine, both
by birth and education; and he had travelled on the Continent,
and wore mustachios and whiskers of a somewhat foreign fashion. I
was proud of being seen with him. He was really a fine fellow in
a good number of ways, and I might have fallen into much worse
hands.

Every Saturday I wrote home, telling of my weekly doings--my
father had insisted upon this; but there was so little variety in
my life that I often found it hard work to fill a letter. On
Sundays I went twice to chapel, up a dark narrow entry, to hear
droning hymns, and long prayers, and a still longer sermon,
preached to a small congregation, of which I was, by nearly a
score of years, the youngest member. Occasionally, Mr Peters, the
minister, would ask me home to tea after the second service. I
dreaded the honour, for I usually sate on the edge of my chair
all the evening, and answered solemn questions, put in a deep
bass voice, until household prayer-time came, at eight o'clock,
when Mrs Peters came in, smoothing down her apron, and the
maid-of-all-work followed, and first a sermon, and then a chapter
was read, and a long impromptu prayer followed, till some
instinct told Mr Peters that supper-time had come, and we rose
from our knees with hunger for our predominant feeling. Over
supper the minister did unbend a little into one or two ponderous
jokes, as if to show me that ministers were men, after all. And
then at ten o'clock I went home, and enjoyed my long-repressed
yawns in the three-cornered room before going to bed. Dinah and