answers to my inquiries were decidedly funny, and prefaced sotto
voce with, 'What a child it is!' But she was a good kindly lady,
who had the faculty of teaching, and of forestalling rebellion; and
her little thin corkscrew curls, touched with gray, her pale eyes,
prim black silk apron, and sandalled shoes, rise before me full of
happy associations of tender kindness and patience. She was wise,
too, in her own simple way. When nurse would have forewarned her of
Clarence's failings in his own hearing, she cut the words short by
declaring that she should like never to find out which was the
naughty one. And when habit was too strong, and he had denied the
ink spot on the atlas, she persuasively wiled out a confession not
only to her but to mamma, who hailed the avowal as the beginning of
better things, and kissed instead of punishing.

Clarence's queries had been snubbed into reserve, and I doubt
whether Miss Newton's theoretic theology was very much more
developed than that of Mrs. Gooch, but her practice and devotion
were admirable, and she fostered religious sentiment among us,
introducing little books which were welcome in the restricted range
of Sunday reading. Indeed, Mrs. Sherwood's have some literary
merit, and her Fairchild Family indulged in such delicious and
eccentric acts of naughtiness as quite atoned for all the religious
teaching, and fascinated Griff, though he was apt to be very
impatient of certain little affectionate lectures to which Clarence
listened meekly. My father and mother were both of the old-
fashioned orthodox school, with minds formed on Jeremy Taylor,
Blair, South, and Secker, who thought it their duty to go diligently
to church twice on Sunday, communicate four times a year (their only
opportunities), after grave and serious preparation, read a sermon
to their household on Sunday evenings, and watch over their