Chapter 15
XV.
OCTOBER 4
HOME again, and with my dear Ernest delighted to see me. Baby is a year old to-day, and, as usual, father, who seems to abhor anything like a merry-making, took himself off to his room. To-morrow he will be all the worse for it, and will be sure to have a theological battle with somebody.
OCTOBER 5.-The somebody was his daughter Katherine, as usual. Baby was asleep in my lap and I reached out for a book which proved to be a volume of Shakespeare which had done long service as an ornament to the table, but which nobody ever read on account of the small print. The battle then began thus:
Father.-"I regret to see that worldly author in your hands, my daughter."
Daughter-a little mischievously.-"Why, were you wanting to talk, father?
"No, I am too feeble to talk to-day. My pulse is very weak."
"Let me read aloud to you, then."
"Not from that profane book."