War and peace by ALOE Author:Charlotte Maria Tucker Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. A OEIEVOUS FALL. ["Y earliest days were passed in a retired little parsonage in the beautiful county of Kent. How often, as I sit here in... more » darkness, does the home of my childhood rise up in memory before me !—the thatched roof under whose eaves so many swallows had built their nests,—overshadowing walls that would have been white, could their colour have been seen under their thick mantle of roses, honeysuckle, and ivy. I still in thought wander with my sisters along gravel paths, over which we ha'd thrown arches covered with creepers, and fancy that I hear the hum of my bees, or the sound of the chiming church-bells. Oft would we go to deck our mother's grave with flowers, and sit there on the long summer evenings under the shadow of the yew, trying to recall to our childish memories traits of her whom we had early lost, and fancying withwhat joy we should meet her after death in the courts of Heaven! Mine was a happy and a holy childhood ;—holy, because my dear father's piety was so earnest, that it seemed to influence all who dwelt under his roof; and had I never left him I might have always believed myself to be as true a Christian as he was. " We had our Bible readings, our social prayers, our visits to the needy and the sick; and I took pleasure in all these tilings. I could see that my father, meek as he was as regarded himself, was proud of his boy; and by my sisters I was almost adored. My parent was too poor to send me to school; my education was conducted at home, so that I was exposed to no evil influence. My religion appeared to grow fast, like a hot-house plant, that is sheltered from every cold wind. I sometimes imagined myself to be even more zealous than my father, for I had far less patience for the errors of those whose opinions differe...« less