ut I am becoming as discursive as ever! What I want to put down is
about our going out visiting. There is really nothing much to say about
our life at home. It was very happy, but there were no great events in
it, and Eleanor says it will not do for us to "go off at a tangent,"
and describe what happened to the boys at school and college; first,
because these biographies are merely to be lives of our own selves, for
nobody but us two to read when we are both old maids; and secondly,
because if we put down everything we had anything to do with in these
ten years, it will be so very long before our biographies are finished.
We are very anxious to see them done, partly because we are getting
rather tired of them, and Jack is becoming suspicious, and partly
because we have got an amateur bookbinding press, and we want to bind
them.

Well, as I said, we paid visits to relatives of mine, and to old friends
of the Arkwrights. My friends invited Eleanor, and Eleanor's friends
invited me. People are very kind; and it was understood that we were
happier together.

I was fortunate enough to find myself possessed of some charming cousins
living in a cathedral town; and at their house it was a great pleasure
to us to visit. The cathedral services gave us great delight; when I
think of the expression of Eleanor's face, I may almost say rapture.
Then there was a certain church-bookseller's shop in the town, which had
manifold attractions for us. Every parochial want that print and paper
could supply was there met, with a convenience that bordered on luxury.
There was a good store, too, of sacred prints, illuminated texts, and
oak frames, from which we carried back sundry additions to the
garnishing of our room, besides presents for Jack, who was as fond of
such things as we were. Parish matters were, naturally, of perennial
interest for us in our Vicarage home; but if ever they became a fad, it
was about this period.

But it was to a completely new art that this visit finally led us, which
I hardly know how to describe, unless as the art of dressmaking and
general ornamentation.

The neighbourhood abounded with pretty clerical and country homes, where
my cousins were intimate; each one, so it seemed to Eleanor and me,
prettier than the last: sunshiny and homelike, with irregular
comfortable furniture, dainty with chintz, or dark with aged oak, each
room more tastefully besprinkled than the rest with old china, new
books, music, s