one of the Fellows of his
college--a young man full of zeal, who is eager for parochial work, and
has been taking duty at a parish some miles from Oxford. He thinks we
shall be satisfied with the change."

"As if we were the people to be satisfied," cried Dora. "Just confess,
Edmund, that the old gentleman did not think the place worth attending
to, till educated gentlefolk came to live in it."

"Say, rather, that he really did not know the deficiencies," said the
captain, "till they were brought before him."

"Then he ought," muttered Dora.

"Judge not," whispered Mary, who was a reverent person.

"And the school?" resumed Dora. "Was he aware of any deficiency there?"

"He was very glad to hear that you had begun keeping school, and will
contribute to a better arrangement for the week-day school, assist in
pensioning off Dame Verdon, if needful, and in obtaining a better
person."

Dora and Sophy each gave a little caper, and squeezed one another's
hands.

"He is quite disposed to be liberal," continued Edmund; "and I am sure
we shall find him no impediment."

"I don't think the school is going on now," said Mary. "Lizzie Verdon
came for some broth, and said Granny was bad in bed. I asked whether
she had had the doctor, and she stared and said no, but Dame Spurrell
had got her some `yarbs.'"

For in those days the union doctor was not an institution. Large tracts
of country would contract with some apothecary to attend their sick; but
he was generally a busy man, with his hands full of paying patients, and
there was nobody to keep him up to his work among the poor, if he could
have done it, which he really could not. The poor themselves knew that
it was in vain to apply to him, or if he came once in a serious case, to
expect any attention; and they preferred to depend on the woman clever
in "yarbs," on the white witch, or, in favoured villages, on the lady
bountiful or the clergyman and his wife; and in simple cases these
latter were quite efficient, keeping a family medicine-chest and a book
on household medicine.

Mrs Carbonel had rooted out her mother's book, replenished her chest,
and had cured two or three children who had been eating unripe apples,
and greatly benefited Mole with infusions of Jesuit's bark in a large
jug, the same thing as quinine, only more cumbrously and domestically
prepared. But most of the Uphill people had the surest confidence in
Dame Spurrell and her remedies, some of