Perhaps this will appear to you, Edward, a comparatively trivial circumstance (though I hope it may not), but I assure you that it brought tears to my eyes.

When I sat in the Maltravers chapel and thought that for the first time my dear brother had preferred in an open way his convenience or his whim to his duty, and had of set purpose neglected to come to the house of God, I felt a bitter grief that seemed to rise up in my throat and choke me.

I could not think of the meaning of the prayers nor join in the singing: and all the time that Mr.
Butler, our clergyman, was preaching, a verse of a little piece of poetry which I learnt as a girl was running in my head:-- "How easy are the paths of ill; How steep and hard the upward ways; A child can roll the stone down hill That breaks a giant's arm to raise." It seemed to me that our loved one had set his foot upon the downward slope, and that not all the efforts of those who would have given their lives to save him could now hold him back.
It was even worse on Christmas Day.

Ever since we had been confirmed John and I had always taken the Sacrament on that happy morning, and after service he had distributed the Maltravers dole in our chapel.
There are given, as you know, on that day to each of twelve old men L5 and a green coat, and a like sum of money with a blue cloth dress to as many old women.

These articles of dress are placed on the altar-tomb of Sir Esmoun de Maltravers, and have been thence distributed from days immemorial by the head of our house.