thetic
considerations which do not appeal to people who are looking forward to
a good time--a time of fun and frolic for some, and harvesting of
shekels for others.

When I woke on the Sunday, however, old Father Sol had shaken off his
lethargy, bundled the surly clouds into the store-room, locked the door
and put the key into his pocket, and strolled forth to enjoy the sight
of his welcome. Meadow, pasture and moor, green hedgerow and brown
road were silvered over with sunshine, and the flowers looked up and
laughed the tears away from their faces, and told themselves that
everything had been for the best; and the cocks crowed lustily from the
walls where they had flown to greet the sun, and all the birds came out
from eave and tree and lowly nest, and sang their doxology in happy and
tuneful notes which told how brimful they were of joy.

Long before church-time it was so hot that the fields were steaming
like drying clothes before the fire, and as I walked back from
Fawkshill after the morning service I felt sure that there need be no
misgiving about the dryness of the grass for the children's treat on
the morrow. Everybody was concerned for the children! Young women of
eighteen and young men of the same age had no real concern or interest
in the weather except in so far as it involved disappointment to the
children! Well, well! How easily we deceive ourselves, and how
unwilling we are to acknowledge the child within the man!

In the afternoon I went to chapel with Mother Hubbard, and saw and
heard that which made me want to laugh and cry at the same time, and I
really do not know why I should have done either. My emotions seem to
take holiday sometimes and enjoy themselves in their own peculiar way
without restraint. Let me set down my experiences.

Do you know what a "sitting-up" is? If you live in Yorkshire or
Lancashire no doubt you do, but if you are a southerner or a more
northern northerner the probability is that you do not. When Mother
Hubbard told me that the children were to "sit up" at the chapel on
Whit Sunday I stared at her without understanding. "Do they usually
stand up or lie down?" I inquired.

Then it occurred to me that this was, perhaps, a metaphorical way of
speaking, and that there was, so to speak, a "rod in pickle" for the
bairns on this special occasion, but why I could not imagine. Yet I
knew that when an irate Windyridge father undertook to make his lad
"sit up," it usual