The growing children were often allowed to be present when their father’s friends came, and thus silently heard much thoughtful and intellectual conversation. They looked up to him as to one who expected them to care for books and for matters of public moment, and he strove to interest them in his own pursuits and reading, and to give them a taste for what was really good. ‘“Blessed are the pure in heart”—poor Swift,’ he said one day as he handled a volume of the great satirist. ‘That,’ said Dorothea long after, ‘was the best literature lesson I ever received.’ The daughter must have resembled her father both in literary taste and zeal. This busy man, who found time to pursue so many interests, would accuse himself of being ‘naturally idle.’ It may come as a surprise to many who knew the strenuous life at Cheltenham to find this was a fault of which the Principal constantly accused herself. One friend who was much with the Beales, often dining with them on Sundays, was Charles Mackenzie, then headmaster of St. Olave’s Grammar School, and successively vicar of St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate, and St. Benet’s, Gracechurch Street, and prebendary of St. Paul’s. Dorothea felt she owed much to his teaching; he prepared her for confirmation in 1847. As children she and her brothers and sisters attended St. Helen’s. Again to quote her autobiography: ‘To come to the nearer influences of my childhood. There was the faith of my parents, the morning and evening prayer. There was the Bible picture-book and the Sunday lessons. The church we went to was an old one, St. Helen’s, and at the entrance were the words, “This is none other than the House of God, and this is the Gate of Heaven.” There were high pews, and the service was almost a duet between clergyman and clerk, yet I realised, even more than I ever have in the most beautiful cathedral and perfect services, that the Lord was in that place, even as Jacob realised in the desert what he had failed to find at home. There was over the East window an oval coat of arms with strange scrolls which seemed to have eyes, and reclining on each side two life-sized golden angels. This thing seemed to speak strangely to my spiritual consciousness. Our clergyman must have read well. I remember how, as the story of the Crucifixion was read, the church would grow dark, as it seemed. There were no hymn-books, only a few hymns pasted on a card, and generally we sang from Tate and Brady. I know nothing of the substance of the sermons now, but I remember the emotion they often called forth, and how I with difficulty restrained my tears. There was a Tuesday evening service, at which I suppose there were never a dozen present, but I found there great help, and to be obliged to go elsewhere on that night was a great privation. The hymns were a great power in my life. I remember the joy with which I would sing, in my own room, Ken’s