.

Ours was a strange and solemn household. All was stately and well
ordered, and--when company came--splendid; but the house always seemed
to me much gloomier than the great Parish-Church, whither I was taken
every Sunday morning on the shoulder of a tall footman, and shut up
alone in a great Pew lined with scarlet baize, and where I felt very
much like a little child that was lost in the midst of the Red Sea. Far
over my head hung a gallery full of the children of Lady Viellcastel's
charity-school; and these, both boys and girls, would make grimaces at
me while the Psalms were being sung, until I felt more frightened than
when I was on my little stool in the cabinet of relics, on the thirtieth
of January. Just over the ledge of my pew I could see the clergyman, in
his large white wig, leaning over the reading-desk, and talking at me,
as I thought, in a mighty angry manner; and when he, or another divine,
afterwards ascended the pulpit above, I used to fancy that it was only
the same parson grown taller, and with a bigger wig, and that he seemed
to lean forward, and be angrier with me than ever. The time of kneeling
was always one of sore trouble to me, for I had to feel with my foot for
the hassock, which seemed to lie as far beneath me as though it were,
indeed, sunk at the bottom of the Red Sea. Getting up again was quite as
difficult; and I don't think we ever attained the end of the Litany
without my dropping my great red Prayer-Book--not the thirtieth-of-January
one, but another affected to my especial use--with a Clang. On such
occasions the pew-door would open, and the Beadle enter. He always
picked up the book, and gave it me with a low bow; but he never omitted
to tell me, in a deadly whisper, that if I had been one of Lady
Viellcastel's boys, he'd skin me alive, he would.

The Unknown Lady did not attend the parish-church. She, and Mistress
Talmash, and the Foreign Person, held a service apart. I was called
"Little Master," and went with the footman. The fellow's name, I
remember, was Jeremy. He used to talk to me, going and coming, as I sat,
in my fine Laced Clothes, and my hat with a plume in it, and my little
rapier with the silver hilt, perched on his broad shoulder. He used to
tell me that he had been a soldier, and had fought under Colonel Kirk;
and that he had a wife, who washed bands and ruffles for the gentlemen
of the Life Guard, and drank strong waters till she found herself in the
Roundhouse. Al