Behold him how Hell’s reek
  Has crisped his hair and singed his cheek!

His person lacked, it is true, something of the dignity of Dante’s, for it was his caprice to walk up and down the High Street at noonday with one of those cascades of coloured paper which were known as ‘ornaments for your fireplace’ slung over the back and another over the front of his body.  These he manufactured for sale, and he adopted the quaint practice of wearing the exuberant objects as a means for their advertisement.

Mrs. Paget had been accustomed to rule in the little ministry from which Mr. Paget’s celebrated Sin had banished them, and she was inclined to clutch at the sceptre now.  She was the only person I ever met with who was not afraid of the displeasure of my Father.  She would fix her viper-coloured eyes on his, and say with a kind of gimlet firmness, ’I hardly think that is the true interpretation, Brother G.’, or, ’But let us turn to Colossians, and see what the Holy Ghost says there upon this matter.’  She fascinated my Father, who was not accustomed to this kind of interruption, and as she was not to be softened by any flattery (such as:—­’Marvellous indeed, Sister, is your acquaintance with the means of grace!’) she became almost a terror to him.

She abused her powers by taking great liberties, which culminated in her drawing his attention to the fact that my poor stepmother displayed ‘an overweening love of dress’.  The accusation was perfectly false; my stepmother was, if rather richly, always, plainly dressed, in the sober Quaker mode; almost her only ornament was a large carnelian brooch, set in flowered flat gold.  To this the envenomed Paget drew my Father’s attention as ’likely to lead “the little ones of the flock” into temptation’.  My poor Father felt it his duty, thus directly admonished, to speak to my mother.  ’Do you not think, my Love, that you should, as one who sets an example to others, discard the wearing of that gaudy brooch?’ ‘One must fasten one’s collar with something, I suppose?’ ‘Well, but how does Sister Paget fasten her collar?’ ’Sister Paget,’ replied my Mother, stung at last into rejoinder, ’fastens her collar with a pin,—­and that is a thing which I would rather die than do!’

Nor did I escape the attentions of this zealous reformer.  Mrs. Paget was good enough to take a great interest in me, and she was not satisfied with the way in which I was being brought up.  Her presence seemed to pervade the village, and I could neither come in nor go out without seeing her hard bonnet and her pursed-up lips.  She would hasten to report to my Father that she saw me laughing and talking ‘with a lot of unconverted boys’, these being the companions with whom I had full permission to bathe and boat.  She urged my Father to complete my holy vocation by some definite step, by which he would dedicate me completely to the Lord’s service.  Further schooling she thought needless, and merely likely to foster intellectual pride.  Mr. Paget, she remarked, had troubled very little in his youth about worldly knowledge, and yet how blessed he had been in the conversion of souls until he had incurred the displeasure of the Holy Ghost!