136 REMINISCENCES. 



own children, although he was not an indiscriminate child- 

 lover. To all of us he was the most delightful play-fellow, 

 and the most perfect sympathiser. Indeed it is impossible 

 adequately to describe how delightful a relation his was to his 

 family, whether as children or in their later life. 



" It is a proof cf the terms on which we were, and also of 

 how much he was valued as a play-fellow, that one of his sons 

 when about four years old tried to bribe him with sixpence to 

 come and play in working hours. We all knew the sacred- 

 ness of working time, but that any one should resist sixpence 

 seemed an impossibility. 



" He must have been the most patient and delightful of 

 nurses. I remember the haven of peace and comfort it 

 seemed to me when I was unwell, to be tucked up on the 

 study sofa, idly considering the old geological map hung on 

 the wall. This must have been in his working hours, for I 

 always picture him sitting in the horse-hair arm-chair by the 

 corner of the fire. 



" Another mark of his unbounded patience was the way in 

 which we were suffered to make raids into the study when we 

 had an absolute need of sticking-plaster, string, pins, scissors, 

 stamps, foot-rule, or hammer. These and other such neces- 

 saries were always to be found in the study, and it was the 

 only place where this was a certainty. We used to feel it 

 wrong to go in during work-time ; still, when the necessity was 

 great, we did so. I remember his patient look when he said 

 once, ' Don't you think you could not come in again, I have 

 been interrupted very often.' We used to dread going in for 

 sticking-plaster, because he disliked to see that we had cut 

 ourselves, both for our sakes and on account of his acute 

 sensitiveness to the sight of blood. I well remember lurking 

 about the passage till he was safe away, and then stealing 

 in for the plaster. 



" Life seems to me, as I look back upon it, to have been very 

 regular in those early days, and except relations (and a few 



