e canonical
rubbish-heap in the far corner of the kitchen garden. Canon Wrottesley
engaged the attention of every one with a frank belief in his own
powers as an organiser. He found himself almost regretting that he
could not make the matter an occasion for a little gathering of
friends. He loved society, especially ladies' society, and he
purposely kept various small objects about his own room, which--to use
his own expression--might make a little bit of fun. There was a mask
half concealed behind a screen, which, if it did not provoke a start
and a scream from some fair visitor, had attention drawn to it by the
playful question, 'Who is that behind you?' There was a funny pair of
spectacles on the mantelshelf, which Canon Wrottesley would playfully
place upon his handsome nose, and to small visitors he would accompany
the action by a frolicsome 'wowf-wowf.' He loved juvenile parties when
he could wear a coloured paper cap on his head or tie a paper apron
round his waist, and probably his canonry had come to him through what
he himself called his social gifts rather than by his reputation as a
minister of religion. Perhaps he was at his best at a christening
party; he had won much affection from his parishioners by his
felicitous remarks upon these occasions. When the gravity of the
christening of the infant was over Canon Wrottesley always deliberately
relaxed. He chaffed the proud father, told the mother that the baby
was the finest in the parish, and wanted to know whose health he was to
drink where every one appeared so blooming.

'Now, mamma,' the canon said busily, 'let us have plenty of nice dry
wood to start the blaze, and then you must come down to the field and
watch us put a match to the pile. Cyprian, my boy, where are the old
newspapers kept? Fetch them, like a good son, and then you shall carry
a little camp-stool down for mamma to sit upon. Now my coat,'--this to
his butler--'and, Cyprian, tell Mary to find papa's old gloves.'

Mrs. Wrottesley left her morning's work to go to the meadow, and Canon
Wrottesley looked down the road once or twice to see if by a happy
chance some friend or neighbour might be passing to whom he could
proclaim his boyish jaunt. The 'Well I never, sir,' even of a rural
parishioner did in some sort minister to his vanity. An audience was a
necessity to him. He regretted that his cloth forbade him to indulge
in private theatricals, but he encouraged Shakespearean r