At this moment she is probably dressing to go to church, and is absorbed in the contemplation of a new hat.  I should think she had as many hats on her head as hairs—­no, I don’t mean that; it suggests visions of “ole clo’es”—­I mean she must have almost as many hats as hairs on her head.

How inexpressibly mean and petty this devotion to rags and tags and gewgaws seems when one stands in the face of the Immensities and the Eternities!  Yet it would appear as though the feminine mind were really incapable of impression by such Carlylean sublimities, for I saw Annie start for church awhile since in a most terrible combination of maroon and magenta.  Her best clothes evidently, cachemire and silk, with two flowers and a feather in her hat, her charming baby prettiness as much crushed and eclipsed as bad taste and a country town dressmaker could accomplish.  What I like to see Annie in is the simple stuff gown she wears of a morning, with the big bib apron of white linen, and the spotless white collar caressing her creamy throat.  I would lock her best clothes up in that delightful carved oak chest that stands upstairs on the landing and throw the key into the sea; and little Annie would let me do it; she is evidently the most docile of child-women.  Catherine, now, had I ever ventured on adverse criticism of her garments, would have thrown me into the sea instead.

April 7.—­Bank holiday, and wet, of course.  The weather is never propitious on the feast of St. Lubbock.  The old Saints apparently owe a grudge to this latest addition to the calendar.  How beastly it must be in town, with the slushy streets and the beshuttered shops!  How depressing for Paterfamilias who arose at seven in the morning to set off with his wife and his brats and the family food-basket to catch some early excursion train!  How much more depressing for him who has no train to catch, and nothing at all to do but worry through twelve mortal pleasure hours!

St. Lubbock’s malevolent influence doesn’t fortunately extend down here, where everything seems to work in time-worn ruts.  I walked over the fields opposite.  There were a great many new-dropped lambs in the second meadow.  They didn’t appear to mind the drizzle, but kneeling with their little front legs doubled under them, they sucked vigorously at their mothers, while their long tails danced and quivered in the air.

There was one lamb lying quietly on its side.  The ewe stood by, staring down at it with a sort of quiescent curiosity from her brown, stupid, white-lashed eyes.  When I went over to her I saw the lamb was dying; its lips moved incessantly, its little body kept rising and falling with its laboured breath, now and then it made a violent effort to get up, but always fell back in the same position.  I passed back through the same field about an hour after.  There was the lamb still dying, still breathing painfully, still moving its lips as before, but the mother, tired of the spectacle, had walked off, and was calmly munching mangel-wurzel in another part of the field.