hind to shake hands with
the curate, and ask all the poor old people after their diseases. _I_
never can recollect clearly _who_ has _what_. I always apportion the
rheumatism wrongly, but _she_ never does. There she stands just by the
church-gate, with the little sunny lights running up and down upon her
snow-white gown, shaking each grimy old hand with a kind and friendly
equality.

The day rolls by; afternoon service; walk round the grounds; early
dinner (we always embitter our lives on Sundays by dining at _six_,
which does the servants no good, and sours the tempers of the whole
family); then prayers. Prayers are always immediately followed by that
light refection which we call supper.

As the time approaches, my heart sinks imperceptibly lower in my system
than the place where it usually resides.

"Be ready, Sister Nancy,
For the time is drawing nigh,"

says Algy, solemnly, putting his arm round my shoulders, as, the
prayer-bell having rung, we set off for the wonted justicing-room.

"Have a pull at my flask," suggests Bobby, seriously; "there is some
cognac left in it since the day we fished the pool. It would do you all
the good in the world, and, if you took _enough_, you would feel able to
give him _ten_ bags, or, indeed, throw them at his head at a pinch."

"Have you got it?" say I, faintly, to the general, who at this moment
joins us.

"Yes, here it is."

"But what will you do with it _meanwhile_?" cry I, anxiously; "he must
not see it _first_."

"Sit upon it," suggests Algy, flippantly.

"Hang it round his neck while he is at prayers," bursts out Bobby, with
the air of a person who has had an illumination; "you know he always
pretends to have his eyes shut."

"And at 'Amen,' he would awake to find himself famous," says Algy,
pseudo-pompously.

But this suggestion, although I cannot help looking upon it as
ingenious, I do not adopt.

Prayers on Sunday are a much _finer_ and larger ceremonial than they are
on week-days. In the first place, instead of a few of the church prayers
quickly pattered, which are ended in five minutes, we have a whole long
sermon, which lasts twenty. In the second place, the congregation is so
much greater. On week-days it is only the in-door servants; on Sundays
it is the whole staff--coachman, grooms, stablemen. I think myself that
it is more in the nature of a _parade_, to insure that none of the
establishment are out _sweethearting_, than of a religious e