ora, somewhat imprudently,
tried to turn him out.

The disturbance was so great that the sisters were obliged to dismiss
their pupils at least a quarter of an hour sooner than they had
intended, and without having tried to teach the short daily prayers that
had been part of the programme.

Somewhat crestfallen they sped back to the house.

"Did you ever see such a set of little savages?" cried Dora.

"Come, there was a very fair proportion of hopeful ones," was the reply.

These hopeful ones made one class under Dora, while Mary, who had more
patience and experience, undertook the others, who, when once wakened,
proved very eager and interested, in a degree new to those who are not
the first lights in gross darkness. Johnnie Hewlett was the brightest
among the children, for though his weekdays were occupied in what his
mother called "keeping a few birds," or, more technically,
"bird-starving," he spent most of his spare time beside his sick aunt,
and had not only been taught by her to read, but to think, and to say
his prayers.

As Dora gradually learnt, both Mary Hewlett and Judith Grey had been
children of a little "smock-frock" farmer, and had not been entirely
without breeding; but Molly had been the eldest, and had looked after
the babies, and done much of the work of the farm, till she plunged into
an early and most foolish marriage with the ne'er-do-well member of the
old sawyer's family, and had been going deeper into the mire ever since.

Judith, a good deal younger, and always delicate, had gone to the dame
school when Mrs Verdon was rather less inefficient, and at ten years
old had been taken into service by an old retired servant, who needed
her chiefly as a companion, and thence she had been passed on to a
family where the ladies were very kind to the servants, and the children
brought them their books and their information of all kinds, so that she
had much cultivation, religious and otherwise.

When her accident had sent her home to the only surviving member of her
family, she hoped to be of use to her sister and the children; but,
before long, she found it almost hopeless. Molly, indeed, was roughly
kind to her, but Dan took no notice of her except to "borrow" her money,
and any attempt to interfere with the management of the children was
resented.

Johnnie, the eldest boy, was fond of his aunt, and soon became her best
attendant when not out at the work that began at nine years old. He was