We were put to bed; the light was taken away; we were told to go to
sleep, and promised faithfully that we would do so; the tongue indeed
swore, but the mind was unsworn. It was agreed that we should keep
pinching one another to prevent our going to sleep. We did so at
frequent intervals; at last our patience was rewarded with the heavy
creak, as of a stout elderly lady labouring up the stairs, and
presently our victim entered.

To cut a long story short, the lady on satisfying herself that we
were asleep, never said her prayers at all; during the remainder of
her visit whenever she found us awake she always said them, but when
she thought we were asleep, she never prayed. It is needless to add
that we had the matter out with her before she left, and that the
consequences were unpleasant for all parties; they added to the
troubles in which we were already involved as to our prayers, and
were indirectly among the earliest causes which led my brother to
look with scepticism upon religion.

For a while, however, all went on as though nothing had happened. An
effect of distrust, indeed, remained after the cause had been
forgotten, but my brother was still too young to oppose anything that
my mother told him, and to all outward appearance he grew in grace no
less rapidly than in stature.

For years we led a quiet and eventless life, broken only by the one
great sorrow of our father's death. Shortly after this we were sent
to a day school in Bloomsbury. We were neither of us very happy
there, but my brother, who always took kindly to his books, picked up
a fair knowledge of Latin and Greek; he also learned to draw, and to