’But _do_ you, father?’ I asked gravely, ’for if you don’t you haven’t got a leg to stand on, and I——’ ’No, I don’t desire the office of a bishop, Meg; I don’t want to do anything different from what I am doing now. I don’t, I don’t.’ ’Why, father,’ I exclaimed, ’does anybody want you to?’ ’I loathe natives,’ he replied, and went out of the room hurriedly. Sometimes I don’t understand my father; he says things that don’t seem to have the slightest bearing on the subject under discussion. When Ross came home in the summer for the holidays he was bigger than ever. I had the greatest difficulty in keeping him in his place. He seemed to think he could go straight on from that moment when he went seven feet high and said, ’There, darling.’ He actually had the cheek to say, ’Because I don’t choose’ to me once, and we had words about it! Aunt Amelia invited herself to stay for six weeks while he was home. Relations were slightly strained all the time and when she said to father in front of Ross, ’I hope Meg has been quite steady since.’ I really thought they were both going to blow up, but we escaped with a slammed door and father’s threat to go into lodgings. Ross calmed down later in the day and observed that ’It was a quaint family, all cracked on something: Aunt Amelia on Calvinism, Uncle Jasper on Archæology, Cousin Emily on animals, and you,’ he added rudely, ’on—er bluebells.’ ’And daddy?’ I asked, ignoring the insult. ’Oh, daddy’s passion is souls,’ and he changed the conversation quickly. But I was never so horrified in all my life. To think that my brother should compare father with Aunt Amelia. ’Souls,’ I gasped, ’whatever do you mean? Are you _ab-so-lu-tely_ dotty, Ross?’ ’You never _can_ see anything farther than your nose, Meg. What do you suppose he said he was going to change the kids’ service for that Sunday?’ For ’that Sunday’ was the one that comes once a month, when the village children have to go to church, to say the catechism to father, instead of having Sunday school. He said at lunch if we had no other engagements he’d be most awfully obliged if Aunt Amelia and I would go and help keep the kids quiet as several of the teachers were away. Aunt Amelia observed that she never had engagements on Sunday (she is tiring), and of course I said I would go, though privately I thought it was a sin and a shame to spend that gorgeous afternoon in learning what your godfathers and godmothers did for you. Ours never did anything for us, except to send us ten bob at Christmas, though Ross’s godmother says she is going to leave him all her money and me her diamonds. It was so hot in church, and the children were so naughty. The small boy next to me was a little devil. His name was Tommy Vellacott. He had a picture in his Prayer Book and he would keep sticking pins in it. Father stopped once and asked what he was doing.