A Farmer’s Life 
was more ready for a game at cribbage than for a 
book. Yet, if anyone would read to her, she 
preferred that even to cards. Esmond was a 
special delight to her. My sisters introduced 
her to many books on that level; and once, when 
she had to keep her bed for a few days and I read 
The Pilgrim’s Progress to her, her happy apprecia- 
tion greatly enhanced the value of that book for 
me. 
Old Farnborough days were never far from her 
thoughts. Without her insisting on them or 
being troublesome about them at all, the memories 
seemed to spring, like daisies from a lawn, out of 
her smooth daily doings. Often there was a 
little whimsical laugh in them at her own expense. 
Thus she was amused to tell how, once, she stole 
an orange from her mother’s cupboard, peeled 
it, and then, overtaken too soon by conscience, 
put it back where she found it. It was its own 
evidence against her ; but that was a consideration 
that at no time of her life had any weight with 
Ann Smith. Once a course seemed right to 
her she followed it. And, as her conscience 
had nothing else to worry about, it sometimes 
exercised itself over childish peccadilloes. “ It 
troubles me now,” she said one day, having 
related some momentary passion of contempt she 
had given way to all alone, over a small kindness 
of her mother’s for which she felt she was too 
old. After seventy years still she grieved. 
194 
