midday
Next morning the North R -- Club was placarded with announcements that on Easter Eve next Robert Elsmere , Esq. , would deliver a lecture in the Debating Hall on ` The Claim of Jesus upon Modern Life ' ; to be followed , as usual , by general discussion . It was the afternoon of Good Friday . Catherine had been to church at St. Paul 's , and Robert , though not without some inward struggle , had accompanied her . Their midday meal was over , and Robert had been devoting himself to Mary , who had been tottering round the room in his wake , clutching one finger tight with her chubby hand . In particular , he had been coaxing her into friendship with a wooden Japanese dragon which wound itself in awful yet most seductive coils round the cabinet at the end of the room . It was Mary 's weekly task to embrace this horror , and the performance went by the name of ` kissing the Jabberwock . ' It had been triumphantly achieved , and , as the reward of bravery , Mary was being carried round the room on her father 's shoulder , holding on mercilessly to his curls , her shining blue eyes darting scorn at the defeated monster .