HOUSEKEEPING. 97 



which had been luxuriating on the best of herbage all 

 through the sweet summer, were brought home for 

 inspection and — doom ! So sleek, and contented, and 

 happy they looked, little guessing why the long, sunny 

 days had been made so pleasant to them. 



The creatures had been reared on the home-farm, 

 perhaps had been fed from the children's hands. It 

 was horrible ! The blood that flowed for days was too 

 terrible to dwell upon ! Do you wonder that Wildie's 

 nights were haunted by four-footed ghosts, and that her 

 pillow was wet with tears ? Do you wonder that she 

 shrank from superintending a "roast," knowing its 

 history as she did. 



Our father usually retired into his " den," and put 

 himself upon Lent diet for a season. For a fortnight 

 there was plenty of fresh meat; but such mincing of 

 steak, and salting of joints, and pounding of sugar, and 

 melting of suet, and stoning of raisins, and cracking of 

 bones, and calls for sticking-plaster ! After that, every 

 remnant of the animals disappeared into barrels or jars, 

 or depended in curious forms from the kitchen rafters ; 

 and it was time to "dip the candles." These were 

 made, not by dozens, but by hundreds, and the process 

 was a tedious, untidy, sickening one, for it was nothing 

 but dipping wicks into hot tallow all day long, until 

 the candles were considered thick enough. 



This was work which the children could do very 

 well. They were wont to vary it by making funny 

 branched candles, shaped like the golden candlestick of 

 the Temple, as represented in pictures they had seen. 



