'Tell me the uttermost, my erring child.'
'Fourpence to Nannie, and five and threepence to Ross.'
I escaped into the bathroom and slammed the door. I sang a hymn as I
bathed; it was that one the children love so, 'Days and Moments Quickly
Flying.' I thought it might help to restore the tone of the household.
Daddy shoved five and sevenpence under the door with a note to say that
a lady in the house was very ill and would I either sing something else,
or go in the next street, as that hymn made her nervous, so I chanted
(being always anxious to oblige)--
'Beer, beer, glorious beer,
Drink till you're made of it,
Don't be afraid of it,
Glorious, glorious beer.'
Another note was pushed under the door then to say that the lady was
dead now, and the Bishop thought it would be well for me to sign the
pledge (enclosed).
The Bishop took me into dinner. I behaved just like a clergyman's
daughter.
'Sorry,' said Michael, suddenly dropping his fish fork, 'but I can't,
after all.'
'Can't what?'
'Marry the girl, sir.'
'De'ah me,' said the Bishop, 'this is most distressing, very.'
'What would your ludship advise,' said father, looking at me hopelessly,
'you see, I can't keep her here either, for the sake of the parish.'
'There is a home for Decayed Gentlewomen at Putney,' the Bishop began;
'I should be very happy if my vote and influence would be of any help,
but I doubt'--he continued surveying me solemnly--'whether they would
take her. She is so ah--er--um--so _exceedingly_ decayed.'
After dinner the Bishop nodded in the direction of his chaplain and
whispered to me,--
'It sings. Most painful. Very.'
So of course I asked it to. Aunt Constance accompanied its impassioned
wail.
'If I should die
To-night,
My friends would look upon my face
With tears,
And kissing me, lay snow-white flowers against
My hair.
Keep not your kisses for my cold,
Dead face,
But let me feel them
Now.'
(Unknown author).
Father looked round the congregation with a cold eye. He has views
about guests.
'Thank you very much, Mr Williams. Won't you sing something else?'
And Mr Williams went upstairs to get another.
'Oh,' sobbed Charlie Foxhill, laying his head down on Ross's shoulder,
'keep not your kisses for my cold----'
'No one,' my brother giggled, 'can look upon _your_ face _without_
tears, old thing, but you shall have snow-white flowers all right; here,
can you feel them now?' and he shoved a camellia and several wet
carnations down Charlie's collar, and the Bishop mopped his eyes and
remarked in his best Oxford drawl,--
'Such a good chap, really, if he only wouldn't. Top-hole, very.'