utter were carried out
to her after breakfast, not to say three-cornered remnant of pie, or
sandwich of cold meat at luncheon; and, though some was saved for
"granfer and the children," still she began to look like another woman
ere many weeks were over.

Betsy Seddon and Molly Hewlett were much displeased, and reproached her
with having got the place by "hypercriting about."

Nanny Barton put on a white apron and brought out the big Bible when she
saw the ladies getting over the stile. The first time Dora was much
delighted; the second, Mrs Carbonel managed to see that the Bible was
open at one of the genealogies in the First Book of Chronicles, and
spied besides the dirtiest of all skirts under the apron. After that
she did not much heed when Nanny said she would come to church if her
shoes were not so bad.

Tirzah Todd laughed and showed her white teeth and merry eyes so
pleasantly that no one could help liking to talk with her, but alas! old
Pucklechurch took care to let them know that she could be just as merry
in a different way at the "Fox and Hounds."

CHAPTER EIGHT.

MARY'S APPROACH.

"The chaise was stayed,
But yet was not allowed
To drive up to the door, lest all
Should say that she was proud."
_Cowper_.

Dr Fogram was true to his word, and made his appearance at the Long
Vacation. The Carbonels, to whom little eager Sophia had been added a
day or two previously, first saw him at Downhill Church, where he made a
most dignified appearance, in a very full surplice, with his Doctor of
Divinity's red hood over it. The clerk, small, grey-haired, and
consequential, bustled up to open the pulpit door for him, and he
preached, in a fine, sonorous voice, a very learned sermon, that might
have been meant for his undergraduates at Oxford.

It was the day for afternoon service at Uphill, so the sisters had to
hurry away to eat their luncheon in haste, and then to introduce Sophy
to the Sunday School, where she was to teach a class of small ones, a
matter of amazing importance and ecstasy.

She was a damsel of thirteen, in a white frock and cape, a pink sash,
pink kerchief round her neck, pink satin ribbons tying down her broad
Leghorn hat over her ears, in what was called gipsy fashion. She had
rosy cheeks, blue, good-natured eyes, and shining, light-brown curls all
round her head. Her appearance in the school was quite as memorable to
the children as Dr Fogram's could be to their elders