190 THE STORY OF MY LIFE [1847
at that time I was too ingenuous to indulge in even the most innocent kinds of deception. My own brothers, Francis and William,, who were now at Eton, came to the Kectory for part of their holidays, but their upbringing and their characters had so little in common with my own, that we were never very intimate, though I rather liked them than otherwise. They hated the Rectory, and got away from it whenever they could.
Of all the miserable days in the year, Christmas was the worst. I regarded it with loathing unutterable. The presents of the quintessence of rubbish which I had to receive from my aunts with outward grace and gratitude. The finding all my usual avocations and interests cleared away. The having to sit for hours and hours pretending to be deeply interested in the six huge volumes of Foxe's "Book of Martyrs/' one of which was always doled out for my mental sustenance. The being compelled — usually with agonising chilblains — to walk twice to church, eight miles through the snow or piercing marsh winds, and sit for hours in mute anguish of congelation, with one of Uncle Julius's interminable sermons in the afternoon, about which at that time I heartily agreed with a poor woman, Philadelphia Isted, who declared that they were " the biggest of nonsense." Then, far the worst of all, the Rectory and its sneerings and snubbings in the evening.
My mother took little or no notice of all this — her thoughts, her heart, were far away. To her Christmas was simply "the festival of the birth of it would instantly have been considered unnecessary, the one thought in the mind of all the family being that it was a duty to force me to do what I disliked; buttely he forgot about that." lii.iHV