‘Dearest of boys, please come to-day, Papa and mama have bid me say, They hope you’ll dine with us at three; They will be out till then, you see, But you will start at once, you know, And come as fast as you can go. Next week they hope you’ll come and stay Some time before you go away. Dear boy, how pleasant it will be! Ever your dearest Emily!’ Twelve years of age was I, and she Fourteen, when thus she wrote to me, A schoolboy, with an uncle spending My holidays, then nearly ending. My uncle lived the mountain o’er, A rector, and a bachelor; The vicarage was by the sea, That was the home of Emily: The windows to the front looked down Across a single-streeted town, Far as to where Worms-head was seen, Dim with ten watery miles between; The Carnedd mountains on the right With stony masses filled the sight; To left the open sea; the bay In a blue plain before you lay. A garden, full of fruit, extends, Stone-walled, above the house, and ends With a locked door, that by a porch Admits to churchyard and to church; Farm-buildings nearer on one side, And glebe, and then the country wide. I and my cousin Emily Were cousins in the third degree; My mother near of kin was reckoned To hers, who was my mother’s second: My cousinship I held from her. Such an amount of girls there were, At first one really was perplexed: ’Twas Patty first, and Lydia next, And Emily the third, and then, Philippa, Phœbe, Mary Gwen. Six were they, you perceive, in all; And portraits fading on the wall, Grandmothers, heroines of old, And aunts of aunts, with scrolls that told Their names and dates, were there to show Why these had all been christened so. The crowd of blooming daughters fair Scarce let you see the mother there, And by her husband, large and tall, She looked a little shrunk and small; Although my mother used to tell That once she was a county belle: Busied she seemed, and half-distress’d For him and them to do the best. The vicar was of bulk and thewes, Six feet he stood within his shoes, And every inch of all a man; Ecclesiast on the ancient plan, Unforced by any party rule His native character to school; In ancient learning not unread, But had few doctrines in his head; Dissenters truly he abhorr’d, They never had his gracious word. He ne’er was bitter or unkind, But positively spoke his mind. Their piety he could not bear, A sneaking snivelling set they were: Their tricks and meanness fired his blood; Up for his Church he stoutly stood. No worldly aim had he in life To set him with himself at strife; A spade a spade he freely named, And of his joke was not ashamed, Made it and laughed at it, be sure, With young and old, and rich and poor. His sermons frequently he took Out of some standard reverend book; They seemed a little strange, indeed, But were not likely to mislead.