The Archdeacon dined with us a short time before I left home and gave me a very fine valedictory address. He said that I was about to follow the example of my ancestors and devote myself to the service of my country. He had every hope that I would acquit myself as nobly as they did. This was a very affecting thing to say, particularly in our dining-room, with the pictures of my grandfather’s battles hanging round the walls. I looked at them while he spoke, but I did not venture to look at my mother. Her eyes have a way of twinkling when the Archdeacon is at his best which always upsets me. The Archdeacon, his face still raised toward the large battle picture, added that there is nothing finer than the service of one’s country, nothing more inspiring for a man and nothing more likely to lead to fame. I felt at the time that this is very likely to be true in the case of any one who has a country to serve. I, unfortunately, have none. The recent developments of Irish life, the revivals of various kinds, the books which people keep on writing, and the general atmosphere of the country have robbed me and others like me of the belief, held comfortably by our fathers, that we are Englishmen. On the other hand, nobody, least of all the patriotic politicians who make speeches, will admit that we are Irish. We are thus, without any fault of our own, left poised in a state of quivering uncertainty like the poor Samaritans whom the Jews despised as Gentiles and the Gentiles did not like because they seemed to be Jews. I found it difficult, while I listened to the Archdeacon, to decide what country had a claim on me for service. Perhaps Portugal--I was going to Lisbon--would mark me for her own. For more than three years I saw nothing of Lalage. My holidays, snatched with difficulty from a press of ridiculously unimportant duties, never corresponded with hers. I heard very little of her. The Canon never wrote to me at all about Lalage or anything else. My mother merely chronicled her scholastic successes, which included several prizes for English composition. The one really interesting piece of information which I got about her came, curiously enough, from the Archdeacon. He wrote to me for a subscription to a fund for something, rebuilding the bishop’s palace I think. At the end of his letter he mentioned an incident in Lalage’s career which he described as deplorable. It appeared that a clergyman, a man of some eminence according to the Archdeacon and so, presumably, not the original curate had set an examination paper intended to test the religious knowledge of Lalage and others. In it he quoted some words from one of St Paul’s epistles: “I keep my body under and have it in subjection,” and asked what they meant. Lalage submitted a novel interpretation. “St. Paul,” she wrote, “is here speaking of that mystical body which is the Church. It ought always to be kept under and had in subjection.”