As the time approaches, my heart sinks imperceptibly lower in my system than the place where it usually resides.

  “Be ready, Sister Nancy,
  For the time is drawing nigh,”

says Algy, solemnly, putting his arm round my shoulders, as, the prayer-bell having rung, we set off for the wonted justicing-room.

“Have a pull at my flask,” suggests Bobby, seriously; “there is some cognac left in it since the day we fished the pool.  It would do you all the good in the world, and, if you took enough, you would feel able to give him ten bags, or, indeed, throw them at his head at a pinch.”

“Have you got it?” say I, faintly, to the general, who at this moment joins us.

“Yes, here it is.”

“But what will you do with it meanwhile?” cry I, anxiously; “he must not see it first”

“Sit upon it,” suggests Algy, flippantly.

“Hang it round his neck while he is at prayers,” bursts out Bobby, with the air of a person who has had an illumination; “you know he always pretends to have his eyes shut.”

“And at ‘Amen,’ he would awake to find himself famous,” says Algy, pseudo-pompously.

But this suggestion, although I cannot help looking upon it as ingenious, I do not adopt.

Prayers on Sunday are a much finer and larger ceremonial than they are on week-days.  In the first place, instead of a few of the church prayers quickly pattered, which are ended in five minutes, we have a whole long sermon, which lasts twenty.  In the second place, the congregation is so much greater.  On week-days it is only the in-door servants; on Sundays it is the whole staff—­coachman, grooms, stablemen.  I think myself that it is more in the nature of a parade, to insure that none of the establishment are out sweethearting, than of a religious exercise.  Usually I am delighted when the sermon is ended.  Even Barrow or Jeremy Taylor would sound dull and stale if fired off in a flat, fierce monotone, without emphasis or modulation.  Tonight, at every page that turns, my heart declines lower and lower down.  It is ended now; so is the short prayer that follows it.  We all rise, and father stands with his hawk-eyes fixed on the servants, as they march out, counting them.  The upper servants are all right; so are the housemaids, cookmaids, and lesser scullions.  Alas! alas! there is a helper wanting.

Having listened to and disbelieved the explanation of his absence, father leads the way into supper, but the little incident has taken the bloom off his suavity.

Sir Roger has deposited the bag—­still wrapped in its paper coverings—­ on a chair, in a modest and unobtrusive corner of the dining-room, ready for presentation.  He did this just before prayers.  As we enter the room, father’s eyes fall on it.

“What is that?” he cries, pointing with his forefinger, and turning severely to the boys.  “How many times have I told you that I will not have parcels left about, littering the whole place?  Off with it!”