duty to its men, who deserve
well of the public as of the Great Eastern Railway itself; but its main
merit, after all, is that it has been the making of East Anglia.

CHAPTER II.
THE STRICKLANDS.

Reydon Hall--The clergy--Pakefield--Social life in a village.

As I write I have lying before me a little book called 'Hugh Latimer; or,
The School-boy's Friendship,' by Miss Strickland, author of the 'Little
Prisoner,' 'Charles Grant,' 'Prejudice and Principle,' 'The Little
Quaker.' It bears the imprint--'London: Printed for A. R. Newman and
Co., Leadenhall Street.' On a blank page inside I find the following:
'James Ewing Ritchie, with his friend Susanna's affectionate regards.'
Susanna was a sister of Miss Agnes Strickland, the authoress, and was as
much a writer as herself. The Stricklands were a remarkable family,
living about four or five miles from Wrentham, on the road leading from
Wangford to Southwold, at an old-fashioned residence called Reydon Hall.
They had, I fancy, seen better days, and were none the worse for that.
The Stricklands came over with William the Conqueror. One of them was
the first to land, and hence the name. A good deal of blue blood flowed
in their veins. Kate--to my eyes the fairest of the lot--was named
Katherine Parr, to denote that she was a descendant of one of the wives
of the too-much-married Henry VIII., and in the old-fashioned
drawing-room of Reydon Hall I heard not a little--they all talked at
once--of what to me was strange and rare. Mr. Strickland had deceased
some years, and the widow and the daughters kept up what little state
they could; and I well remember the feeling of surprise with which I
first entered their capacious drawing-room--a room the size of which it
had never entered into my head to conceive of. It is to the credit of
these Misses Strickland that they did not vegetate in that old house, but
held a fair position in the world of letters. Miss Strickland herself
chiefly resided in town. Agnes, the next, whose 'Queens of England' is
still a standard book, was more frequently at home. The only one of the
family who did not write was Sarah, who married one of the Radical
Childses of Bungay, and who not till after the death of her husband
became respectable and atoned for her sins by marrying a clergyman.
Kate, as I have said, the fairest of the whole, married an officer in the
army of the name of Traill, and went out to Canada, and wrote there a
boo