ap in the Gardens, he was obliged to walk about for the
rest of the time bare-headed; and many were the people who turned
round to look a second time after the beautiful boy with the long fair
hair--a fact of which Master Lionel was not quite unconscious, I
think.

My aunt kindly pressed us to remain with her over Christmas. I longed
to see the pantomime, having heard much from my cousins and from Leo
of its delights--and of the harlequin, columbine, and clown. But my
father wanted to be at home again, and he took me and Rubens and Nurse
Bundle with him at the end of November.

CHAPTER VII

POLLY AND I RESOLVE TO BE "VERY RELIGIOUS"--DR. PEPJOHN--THE
ALMS-BOX--THE BLIND BEGGAR

I must not forget to speak of an incident which had a considerable
influence on my character at this time. The church which my uncle and
his family "attended," as it was called, was one of those most dreary
places of worship too common at that time, in London and elsewhere. It
was ugly outside, but the outside ugliness was as nothing compared
with the ugliness within. The windows were long and bluntly rounded at
the top, and the sunlight was modified by scanty calico blinds, which,
being yellow with age and smoke, _toned_ the light in rather an
agreeable manner. Mouldings of a pattern one sees about common
fireplaces ran everywhere with praiseworthy impartiality. But the
great principle of the ornamental work throughout was a principle only
too prevalent at the date when this particular church was last "done
up." It was imitations of things not really there, and which would
have been quite out of place if they had been there. For instance,
pillars and looped-up curtains painted on flat walls, with pretentious
shadows, having no reference to the real direction of the light. At
the east end some Hebrew letters, executed as journeymen painters
usually do execute them, had a less cheerful look than the
highly-coloured lion and unicorn on the gallery in front. The clerk's
box, the reading-desk, and the pulpit, piled one above another, had a
symmetrical effect, to which the umbrella-shaped sounding-board above
gave a distant resemblance to a Chinese pagoda. The only things which
gave warmth or colour to the interior as a whole were the cushions and
pew curtains. There were plenty of them, and they were mostly red.
These same curtains added to the sense of isolation, which was already
sufficiently attained by the height of the pew walls and