Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/16

8 commonly misnamed blue, but a colour as pure and vivid as the tint of a flower, from the clear saucy blue of the forget-me-not to the deep purple that lurks in the heart of the violet. We are eleven boys and girls altogether, and I have said that we number twelve pairs of eyes of one colour, so it is plain there must be one exception to the general rule, and that is me. My eyes were green from the day of my birth, and will be green to the hour of my death; mamma calls them grey, but where one's personal appearance is concerned, it is always safer to believe one's enemies than one's friends.

"The governor is brushing his hat!" exclaims Jack, bursting in upon us spick and span in his correctly fitting gloves and tall hat, and we follow him precipitately. In the hall are assembled mamma, Dolly, Alan, and such of the young ones as are old enough to go to church, and the governor. He has finished brushing his hat and put it on his head, but as he is rummaging in a drawer for his gloves, he does not notice our late arrival. And now he sets out, mamma by his side, the procession is formed, and we all tail two and two behind them. Across the lawn, through the wicket-gate, in at God's Acre, past our ancestors Geoffrey and Joan, who lie in duplicate, marble effigy above ground, bleached bones below, flat on their backs, with their toes turned stiffly up, and their prim hands folded palm to palm. If the effigies are good likenesses, I should say that Geoffrey must have been an obstinate uncomfortable sort of old fellow, while Joan was pleasant to live with and very much under her lord's thumb. An impertinent rose-bush planted by Geoffrey's side is holding its sweet red blossom to his marble nose, and from it he seems to be turning away disdainfully, just as, maybe, he did in life from all fair and pleasant things. Under the porch, along the cool dark aisle we go, and file into the long pew that seems expressly made for a man with many children. Mamma sits at the top, papa at the bottom;