“But Joseph were right glad, he were—and so he told I—to see the rare tug he had in draggin’ they three dead women up hill and down hill ’cross to the church-yard. For Joseph never gived ’en no helpin’ hand—you may take your oath on’t—though he did make a show of pushin’ at the bier whensomever the Bishop looked his way. “Didn’t no one never hear on’t? Yes, they did. But they didn’t take no count on’t. Our people baint over wise about religion, and things were done in those days that’d make a rare potheration now. Besides, you see, Bishop were there, and he made a sight o’ difference. ’Twas a rare fine buryin’, people thought, wi’ a Bishop to put you unnerground; though ’tis true he hadn’t his fine gran’ toggery on, and his girt white sleeves.” * * * * * The actors in our humble drama are dead and gone. The Bishop and Price and Joseph have, each in his turn, been followed to the grave, only with less eccentric rites. But the story of the farmer’s “Happy Family” still lingers in the village, and is told and re-told round many a cottage hearth under the quaint but significant title of “Price’s Menagerie.” * * * * * P.S. The “Professor” himself came round to-day—“for a pipe of baccy, Sir, if you have such a thing about you”—so I have utilised him to correct his own proof sheets. “There baint nothin’ wrong in ’em, _Master_ Fred (this to a man of sixty!), so fur as I sees. Only you says ‘gived’ where I says ‘gi’ed.’ But taint no odds. Like enough they’ll guess what you means whatsomever you writes down.” Thanks, Matthew, for your tribute to my clearness of expression. The Cruel Crawling Foam IT was a touch of the old wilfulness in Ronald, which cost him dear, and saddened all his future life. A windy storm-swept sky, though the wind was only playing with the sea as yet. Still, it met us, as we went down to the shore, with a drift of sand that stung the face like pin-pricks—trying, one might easily fancy, to warn us back from our foolhardy enterprise. A painter would have needed only his blends of grey to paint the scene, till we came upon it, and added, I suppose, a patch of colour. Wiser people than ourselves kept quietly indoors; and the sand, the sea, the gulls, and the hurrying scud could all have been rendered in varying shades of grey. It is, to me, the most fascinating hue that the changeful sea can wear. One great artist, whose sketches are the glory of Girton College, knew it well. With an unerring eye for this sad unity of tone, she admits no faintest touch of colour into her cold grey wastes of sea and sky.