r Allen even
threatened to write to Dr Fogram, but as he did not know how to address
a letter, to what he called "Oxford College," he contented himself with
walking off with his belongings to Downhill church every Sunday--that
is, when they went anywhere.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

PROGRESS OR NO PROGRESS.

"For some cry quick and some cry slow,
But while the hills remain,
Uphill, too slow, will need the whip,
Downhill, too quick, the chain."
_Tennyson_.

Several years had passed away, and Mary's Approach had never been made,
though the lane had been improved and worn a good deal smoother, and the
Duchess and other grandees had found their way along it.

There were other expenses and other interests. Dora was married. A
fellow-soldier of Captain Carbonel's had come on a visit, and had
carried the bright young sister off to Malta. She was a terrible loss
to all the parish, and it would have been worse if Sophia had not grown
up to take her place, and to be the great helper in the school and
parish, as well as the story-teller and playmate, the ever ready "Aunt
Sophy" of the little children.

And these years had made the farm and garden look much prettier and
neater altogether. The garden was full of flowers, and roses climbed up
the verandah; and the home-field beyond looked quite park-like with iron
railings between, so that the pretty gentle Alderney cows could be
plainly seen.

The skim-milk afforded by those same cows went in great part to the
delicate children in the village, though Mrs Carbonel had every year to
fight a battle for it with Master Pucklechurch and his wife, who
considered the whole of it as the right of the calves and little pigs,
and would hardly allow that the little human Bartons or Morrises were
more worth rearing.

There had been a visitation of measles through the village--very bad in
the cottages, and at Greenhow the three little children had all been
very ill; the second, Dora, died, and the elder one, little Mary,
remained exceedingly delicate, screaming herself ill on any alarm or
agitation, and needing the most anxious care.

The cottagers had learnt to look to Greenhow and the "Gobblealls" as the
safe resource in time of any distress, whether of a child having eaten
too many blackberries, or of a man being helpless from "rhumatiz;" a
girl needing a recommendation to a service, or "Please, sir, I wants to
know if it is allowed for a man to kill my father?" which w