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 of 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 



