164 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xn 



I remember how constant she was in giving invitations to a 

 certain family, who were generally tabooed on account of a 

 disagreeable father, and how we used to say that no one but 

 the Z.s ever came to the house. In later years my father's 

 state was so suffering that intercourse with our neighbours 

 almost ceased, and we children had a rather desolate feeling 

 that we were left out. But I think that my mother never 

 felt this as any loss. She was not essentially sociable as 

 was my father. 



The early memories that come back to me seem now to be 

 full of sunshine and happiness. I think of a sound we always 

 associated with the summer, the rattle of the fly-wheel 

 of the weU, drawing water for the garden ; the lawn burnt 

 brown, the garden a blaze of colour, the six oblong beds in 

 front of the drawing-room windows, with phloxes, lilies, 

 and larkspurs in the middle, and portulacas, verbenas, and 

 other low growing plants in front; the row of lime-trees 

 humming with bees, my father lying on the grass under 

 them; the children playing about, with probably a kitten 

 and a dog, and my mother dressed in lilac muslin, wondering 

 why the blackcaps did not here sing the same song as they 

 did at Maer. This was a perennial puzzle to her, but what 

 the mystery was I have never been able to guess. 



Of pleasure, as the world reckons it, there was but little. 

 We often went to stay with Erasmus Darwin for short visits, 

 but London always gave my mother bad headaches and 

 more than half her time was spent in a darkened room. 

 Every now and then there is an entry in her little diary of a 

 concert or a play, but I should think not more than a dozen 

 times in all the years whilst we were children. She had, 

 however, constant enjoyment in country sights and sounds. 

 She made the " Sand-walk," where she accompanied my 

 father on his daily walks, a wild garden. She used to have 

 the Dog's- mercury and Jack-in-the- hedge pulled up by a 

 small boy hired for the occasion, in order to encourage the 

 growth of bluebells, anemones, cowslips, primroses, and 

 especially wild-ivy. One day a new boy misunderstood the 

 orders, and as my father and mother reached the Sand-walk 

 they found bare earth, a great heap of wild-ivy torn up by 

 its roots and the abhorred Dog's-mercury flourishing alone. 

 My father could not help laughing at her dismay and the 

 whole misadventure, but the tragedy went too deep, and he 

 used to say it was the only time she was ever cross with him. 



She had a large clientele of the village people from the 

 poorer outlying parishes round Down. It was perhaps 



