Father's strict rule was, straight to bed immediately after family
worship, which in winter was usually over by eight o'clock. I was in
the habit of lingering in the kitchen with a book and candle after the
rest of the family had retired, and considered myself fortunate if I
got five minutes' reading before father noticed the light and ordered
me to bed; an order that of course I immediately obeyed. But night
after night I tried to steal minutes in the same lingering way, and
how keenly precious those minutes were, few nowadays can know. Father
failed perhaps two or three times in a whole winter to notice my light
for nearly ten minutes, magnificent golden blocks of time, long to be
remembered like holidays or geological periods. One evening when I was
reading Church history father was particularly irritable, and called
out with hope-killing emphasis, "_John go to bed!_ Must I give you a
separate order every night to get you to go to bed? Now, I will have
no irregularity in the family; you _must_ go when the rest go, and
without my having to tell you.
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