We then
assembled in the dining-room to prayers. After that we went to our
work-room. My wife took her wheel, or her loom, which was a rude
construction of mine, but in which she had contrived to weave some
useful cloth of wool and cotton, and also some linen, which she had made
up for us. Everybody worked; the workshop was never empty. I contrived,
with the wheel of a gun, to arrange a sort of lathe, by means of which
I and my sons produced some neat furniture and utensils. Ernest
surpassed us all in this art, and made some elegant little things for
his mother.
After dinner, our evening occupations commenced; our room was lighted up
brilliantly; we did not spare our candles, which were so easily
procured, and we enjoyed the reflection in the elegant crystals above
us. We had partitioned off a little chapel in one corner of the grotto,
which we had left untouched, and nothing could be more magnificent than
this chapel lighted up, with its colonnades, portico, and altars. We had
divine service here every Sunday. I had erected a sort of pulpit, from
which I delivered a short sermon to my congregation, which I endeavoured
to render as simple and as instructive as possible.
Jack and Francis had a natural taste for music. I made them flageolets
of reeds, on which they acquired considerable skill.
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