, who was
glad neither to walk nor to have to skirmish for a seat. Isa walked
with Emily and me, and so we made up our five for our seat, which,
to our dismay, is in the gallery, but, happily for my mother, the
stairs are easy. The pews there are not quite so close to one's
nose as those in the body of the church; they are a little wider,
and are furnished with hassocks instead of traps to prevent
kneeling, so that we think ourselves well off, and we were agreeably
surprised at the service. There is a new incumbent who is striving
to modify things as well as his people and their architecture
permit, and who preached an excellent sermon. So we triumph over
the young folk, who try to persuade us that the gallery is a
judgment on us for giving in to the hired pew system. They may
banter me as much as they like, but I don't like to see them jest
with grandmamma about it, as if they were on equal terms, and she
does not understand it either. "My dear," she gravely says, "your
grandpapa always said it was a duty to support the parish church."
"Nothing will do but the Congregational system in these days; don't
you think so?" began Pica dogmatically, when her father called her
off. Martyn cannot bear to see his mother teased. He and his wife,
with the young ones, made their way to Hollyford, where they found a
primitive old church and a service to match, but were terribly late,
and had to sit in worm-eaten pews near the door, amid scents of
peppermint and southernwood. On the way back, Martyn fraternised
with a Mr. Methuen, a Cambridge tutor with a reading party, who has,
I am sorry to say, arrived at the house VIS-A-VIS to ours, on the
other side of the cove. Our Oxford young ladies turn up their noses
at the light blue, and say the men have not the finish of the dark;
but Charley is in wild spirits. I heard her announcing the arrival
thus: "I say, Isa, what a stunning lark! Not but that I was up to
it all the time, or else I should have skedaddled; for this place
was bound to be as dull as ditchwater." "But how did you know?"
asked Isa. "Why, Bertie Elwood tipped me a line that he was coming
down here with his coach, or else I should have told the mater I
couldn't stand it and gone to stay with some one." This Bertie
Elwood is, it seems, one of the many London acquaintance. He looks
inoffensive, and so do the others, but I wish they had chosen some
other spot for their studies, and so perhaps does their tutor