g he
wouldn't like to come unless he was fit. The housekeeper overheard
Mrs. Rampant a-begging of him last Christmas. It was no listening
either, for he bellowed at her like a bull, and swore dreadful that
whatever else he was he wouldn't be profane."

"Couldn't he keep his temper for a week, don't you think?" said I
sadly, thinking of my mother's old copy of the _Weeks Preparation_ for
the Lord's Supper.

"It would be as bad if he got into one of his tantrums directly
afterwards," said Nurse: "and with people pestering for
Christmas-boxes, and the pudding and turkey, and so many things that
might go wrong, it would be as likely as not he would. It's a sad
thing too," she added, "for his neck's terribly short, and they say
all his family have gone suddenly with the apoplexy. It's an awful
thing, Miss Isobel, to be taken sudden--and unprepared."

The awe of it came back on me every month when the fair white linen
covered the rustiness of the old velvet altar-cloth which the marsh
damps were rotting, and the silver vessels shone, and the village
organist played out the non-communicants with a somewhat inappropriate
triumphal march, and little Mrs. Rampant knelt on with buried face as
we went out, and Mr. Rampant came out with us, looking more glum than
usual, and with such a short neck!

_Now_ I think poor Mr. Rampant was wrong, and that he ought to have
gone with Mrs. Rampant to the Lord's Supper that Christmas. He might
have found grace to have got through all the little ups and downs and
domestic disturbances of a holiday season without being very
ferocious; and if he had tried and failed I think GOD would
have forgiven him. And he might--it is possible that he
_might_--during that calm and solemn Communion, have forgiven his son
as he felt that Our Father forgave him. So Aunt Isobel says; and I
have good reason to think that she is likely to be right.

I think so too _now_, but _then_ I was simply impressed by the thought
that an ill-tempered person was, as Nurse expressed it, "unfit" to
join in the highest religious worship. It is true that I was also
impressed by her other saying, "It's an awful thing, Miss Isobel, to
be taken sudden and unprepared;" but there was a temporary compromise
in my own case. I could not be a communicant till I was confirmed.

CHAPTER IV.

CASES OF CONSCIENCE--ETHICS OF ILL-TEMPER.

Confirmations were not very frequent in our little village at this
time. About once in th