XXIII. I Correspond with the Major--My Collection--Occupations-- Madame Again--Fête de Village--The British Hooray 219 XXIV. We and the Boys--We and the Boys and our Fads--The Lamp of Zeal--Clement on Unreality--Jack's Ointment 234 XXV. The "Household Album"--Sketching under Difficulties--A New Species?--Jack's Bargain--Theories 242 XXVI. Manners and Customs--Clique--The Lessons of Experience-- Out Visiting--House-pride--Dressmaking 257 XXVII. Matilda--Ball Dresses and the Ball--Gores--Miss Lining--The 'Parishioner's Pennyworth' 269 XXVIII. I go Back to The Vine--After Sunset--A Twilight Existence--Salad of Monk's-hood--A Royal Summons 279 XXIX. Home Again--Home News--The Very End 293 SIX TO SIXTEEN. INTRODUCTION. Eleanor and I are subject to _fads_. Indeed, it is a family failing. (By the family I mean our household, for Eleanor and I are not, even distantly, related.) Life would be comparatively dull, up away here on the moors, without them. Our fads and the boys' fads are sometimes the same, but oftener distinct. Our present one we would not so much as tell them of on any account; because they would laugh at us. It is this. We purpose this winter to write the stories of our own lives down to the present date. It seems an egotistical and perhaps silly thing to record the trivialities of our everyday lives, even for fun, and just to please ourselves. I said so to Eleanor, but she said, "Supposing Mr. Pepys had thought so about his everyday life, how much instruction and amusement would have been lost to the readers of his Diary." To which I replied, that as Mr. Pepys lived in stirring times, and amongst notable people, _his_ daily life was like a leaf out of English history, and his case quite different to the case of obscure persons living simply and monotonously on the Yorkshire moors. On which Eleanor observed that the simple and truthful history of a single mind from childhood would be as valuable, if it could be got, as the whole of Mr. Pepys' Diary from the first volume to the last. And when Eleanor makes a general observation of this kind in her conclusive tone, I very seldom dispute it; for, to begin with, she is generally right, and then she is so much more clever than I.