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IV. UNDER NEW TUTORSHIPS 73
Lady of the Manor,-a very awful book to me, because of the stories in it of wicked girls who had gone to balls, dying immediately after of fever,-and Mrs. Sherwood’s Henry Milner,-of which more presently,1-the Youth’s Magazine, Alfred Campbell the Young Pilgrim,2 and, though rather as a profane indulgence, permitted because of the hardness of our hearts,3 Bingley’s Natural History.4 We none of us cared for singing hymns or psalms as such, and were too honest to amuse ourselves with them as sacred music, besides that we did not find their music amusing.
81. My father and mother,-though due cheques for charities were of course sent to Dr. Andrews, and various civilities at Christmas, in the way of turkeys or boxes of raisins, intimated their satisfaction with the style of his sermons and purity of his doctrine,-had yet, with their usual shyness, never asked for his acquaintance, or even permitted the state of their souls to be inquired after in pastoral visits. Mary and I, however, were charmed merely by the distant effect of him, and used to walk with Anne up and down in Walworth, merely in the hope of seeing him pass on the other side of the way. At last, one day, when, by extreme favour of Fortune, he met us in a great hurry on our own side of it, and nearly tumbled over me, Anne, as he recovered himself, dropped him a low curtsey; whereupon he stopped, inquired who we were, and was extremely gracious to us; and we, coming home in a fever of delight, announced, not much to my mother’s satisfaction, that the Doctor had said he would call some day! And so, little by little, the blissful acquaintance was made. I might be eleven or going on twelve by that time. Miss Andrews, the eldest sister of the “Angel in
1 [See below, p. 94.]
2 [Alfred Campbell. The Young Pilgrim. Containing Travels in Egypt and the Holy Land. By Mrs. Hofland. 1825.]
3 [Matthew xviii. 8.]
4 [For references to this book (of which the true title is Animal Biography), see Vol. XXV. p. 32, and Vol. XXVIII. p. 278.]
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[Version 0.04: March 2008]
