In one of the rooms was a spinet. The strings were struck
with quills, and gave a thin, twangling, or rather twingling sound.
In that house I was taught by a stupid servant to be frightened at
gipsies. She threatened me with them after I was in bed. My
grandmother was a most pious woman. Every morning and night we had
family prayer. It was difficult for her to stoop, but she always
took the great quarto book of Devotions off the table and laid it on
a chair, put on her spectacles, and went through the portion for the
day. I had an uncle who was also pious, but sleepy. One night he
stopped dead in the middle of his prayer. I was present and awake.
I was much frightened, but my aunt, who was praying by his side,
poked him, and he went on all right.
We children were taken to Colchester every summer by my mother, and
we generally spent half our holiday at Walton-on-the-Naze, then a
fishing village with only four or five houses in it besides a few
cottages. No living creature could be more excitedly joyous than I
was when I journeyed to Walton in the tilted carrier's cart. How I
envied the carrier! Happy man! All the year round he went to the
seaside three times a week!
I had an aunt in Colchester, a woman of singular originality, which
none of her neighbours could interpret, and consequently they
misliked it, and ventured upon distant insinuations against her.
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