It was the same about attending church. Her parents went to one service
on Sundays; she insisted on going to all three, and would sit and stand
and kneel, book in hand, as if taking a part in it all, but always when
you looked at her, her eyes would meet yours and the sweet smile would
come to her lips.

I had been told by her mother that Mab would not have dolls and toys,
and this fact, recalled at an opportune moment, revealed to me her
secret mind--her baby philosophy. We, the inhabitants of the village,
grown-ups and children as well as the domestic animals, were her
playmates and playthings, so that she was independent of sham blue-eyed
babies made of sawdust and cotton and inanimate fluffy Teddy-bears; she
was in possession of the real thing! The cottages, streets, the church
and school, the fields and rocks and hills and sea and sky were all
contained in her nursery or playground; and we, her fellow-beings, were
all occupied from morn to night in an endless complicated game, which
varied from day to day according to the weather and time of year, and
had many beautiful surprises. She didn't understand it all, but was
determined to be in it and get all the fun she could out of it. This
mental attitude came out strikingly one day when we had a funeral--
always a feast to the villagers; that is to say, an emotional feast;
and on this occasion the circumstances made the ceremony a peculiarly
impressive one.

A young man, well known and generally liked, son of a small farmer,
died with tragic suddenness, and the little stone farm-house being
situated away on the borders of the parish, the funeral procession had
a considerable distance to walk to the village. To the church I went to
view its approach; built on a rock, the church stands high in the