3tsvi MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR 



clothes. He hated his best clothes, and clung to his 

 oldest until they were forcibly taken away from him 

 by his wife or one of his daughters. In connection 

 with his clothes an amusing story is told. The 

 daughter who kept house for him had asked him 

 to speak to the gardener one morning about his 

 clothes and to tell him he really must come to work 

 in more respectable garments. In the afternoon 

 there was a tennis party at the Eectory, and, while 

 they were at tea, Mr. Foster-Melliar came and 

 joined the party, dressed in the most disreputable 

 jacket that could be imagined. The sleeves ended 

 somewhere near his elbows, and the bottom part 

 of his coat barely came below the upper end of his 

 trousers. His daughter was horrified. " Where 

 on earth did you get that coat from, father?" she 

 asked. And amidst general laughter he explained 

 how he and the gardener always hung their coats 

 on adjoining pegs in the greenhouse before going 

 to work, and that, by mistake, he had taken and put 

 on the gardener's. "But the amusing part is," 

 he added, " that I have spent the whole day blowing 

 him up for wearing such disgraceful clothes." 



To the mind of the writer of this brief memoir, he 

 was a pattern country parson in very deed. He 

 knew the people, knew their speech, understood their 

 ways of thought. He knew all about agriculture, 

 and could talk informingly with either squire, farmer, 

 or labourer. He had a great fund of sympathy, and 

 could always listen to an old woman's troubles and 

 ailments, and find a gentle amusement in it without 

 hurting her feelings. He had, too, a power, a force 

 of character that he used entirely for good, and by 

 which all with whom be came in contact benefited. 



