their doors
and bolts. I think it was this--and the fact that, as the congregation
took no outward part in the prayers except that of listening to them,
Polly and I had nothing to do--and we could not even hear the old
gentleman who usually "read prayers"--which led us into the very
reprehensible habit of "playing at houses" in Uncle Ascott's
gorgeously furnished pew. Not that we left our too tightly stuffed
seats for one moment, but as we sat or stood, unable to see anything
beyond the bombazine curtains (which, intervening between us and the
distant parson, made our hearing what he said next to impossible), we
amused ourselves by mentally "pretending" a good deal of domestic
drama, in which the pew represented a house; and we related our
respective "plays" to each other afterwards when we went home.

Wrong as it was, we did not intend to be irreverent, though I had the
grace to feel slightly shocked when after a cheerfully lighted evening
service, at which the claims of a missionary society had been
enforced, Polly confided to me, with some triumph in her tone, "I
pretended a theatre, and when the man was going round with the box
upstairs, I pretended it was oranges in the gallery."

I had more than once felt uneasy at our proceedings, and I now told
Polly that I thought it was not right, and that we ought to "try to
attend." I rather expected her to resent my advice, but she said that
she had "sometimes thought it was wrong" herself; and we resolved to
behave better for the future, and indeed really did give up our
unseasonable game.

Few religious experiences fill one with more shame and self-reproach
than the large results from very small efforts in the right direction.
Polly and I prospered in our efforts to "attend." I may say for myself
that, child as I was, I began to find a satisfaction and pleasure in
going to church, though the place was hideous, the ritual dreary, and
the minister mumbling. When by chance there was a nice hymn, such as,
"Glory to Thee," or "O GOD, our help in ages past," we were quite
happy. We also tried manfully to "attend" to the sermons, which,
considering the length and abstruseness of them, was, I think,
creditable to us. I fear we felt it to be so, and that about this time
we began to be proud of the texts we knew, and of our punctilious
propriety in the family pew, and of the resolve which we had taken in
accordance with my proposal to Polly--

"Let us be very religious."

O