"Well, well, and how is this little sapling in the Lord's vineyard?" Paternally, pontifically, he patted my head.
"Well enough, thank 'ee," replied my Grandmother for me, "but not always a good little handmaiden for Him. She likes better to waste her time sitting and doing nothing than mending her socks or studying the Word. She could testify by a happier frame of mind and busier fingers in the house and by speaking more freely of the things of the Lord. Would you not urge her, Brother, even at this tender age to do something for the Master?"
"No, I would not." Query invited, epigram looming ahead.
"Then what would you do?" asked my Grandmother.
"I would recommend her to do 'all things' for the Master. Titus, two, nine."
Mr. Royle stumped in, a fat short old man, with a cheerful unsaintly countenance and a general air of wealth and prosperity that I could put down to nothing definite except a heavy gold watch chain which spanned the upper slopes of his enormous stomach. His only rival in this particular quarter of the body was Mrs. Paradine Pratt. These two alone, who wandered wearily outside the fold in the darkness of Congregationalism and the Church of England, had contrived to put on plenteous flesh. Was there some subtle hostility, I recollect asking myself, between corpulence and conversion?
The before-dinner conversation was preoccupied and scanty. Brother Quappleworthy came alone, as Sister Quappleworthy was "not—ah—too well."
The company repaired to the dining-room. Mr. Pentecost Dodderidge pronounced the Blessing, and we all sat down to do justice to that mighty meal. How odd this great assembly seemed in our austere room, now for once looking reasonably well filled; I could see that the experience was as odd to most of the guests as it was to me. Great feasts were not within the ordered course of their spare and godly lives. There was a certain constraint around the table, quite unmistakable, marked by loud and sudden silences.
This is how we sat: