28 My New Zealand Garden 



only feared the opposite extreme for me. My 

 dolls were divested of their finery, that I might 

 not become imbued with a passion for dress, and 

 every care was taken that I might grow up quite 

 natural, which I naturally did. 



My mother drove out regularly, and every after- 

 noon the carriage was at the door, and almost 

 as regularly I was captured and placed in it. I 

 used to hang my head over the side, and specu- 

 late which stones the wheels would go over. 

 This gave me a straight eye, which comes in 

 useful for gardening sometimes. After service on 

 Sunday afternoons my brothers and their tutors 

 took walks, and my governess and I were expected 

 to see any sick poor at the most distant part of 

 the village, and, curiously enough, we sometimes 

 all met. We children thought it lucky, and our 

 preceptors thought it well planned, I suppose. 

 The Hovell Arms was our furthest village 

 boundary in one direction, and we always under- 

 stood that the last representative of the Hovell 

 family was dead, so I was very interested to meet 

 Canon Hovell of Napier lately, to disprove the 

 fact. To think of him being connected with that 

 little wayside inn, bearing his name and arms, 

 brought back much of my past life, even the 

 sound of the village church bells. Bells ! Yes, I 

 am right in applying the plural to them, for bells 

 they just were, though perhaps the worst ever 



