family prayer. It was difficult for her to stoop, but she always
took the great quarto book of Devotions off the table and laid it on
a chair, put on her spectacles, and went through the portion for the
day. I had an uncle who was also pious, but sleepy. One night he
stopped dead in the middle of his prayer. I was present and awake.
I was much frightened, but my aunt, who was praying by his side,
poked him, and he went on all right.

We children were taken to Colchester every summer by my mother, and
we generally spent half our holiday at Walton-on-the-Naze, then a
fishing village with only four or five houses in it besides a few
cottages. No living creature could be more excitedly joyous than I
was when I journeyed to Walton in the tilted carrier's cart. How I
envied the carrier! Happy man! All the year round he went to the
seaside three times a week!

I had an aunt in Colchester, a woman of singular originality, which
none of her neighbours could interpret, and consequently they
misliked it, and ventured upon distant insinuations against her.
She had married a baker, a good kind of man, but tame. In summer-
time she not infrequently walked at five o'clock in the morning to a
pretty church about a mile and a half away, and read George Herbert
in the porch. She was no relation of mine, except by marriage to my
uncle, but she was most affectionate to me, and always loaded me
with nice things whenever I went to see her. The survival in my
memory of her cakes, gingerbread, and kisses; has done me more good,
moral good--if you have a fancy for this word--than sermons or
punishment.

My christian name of "Hale" comes from my grandmother, whose maiden