e within its influence. Mrs. Brown loved young people, and in
fact human creatures in general, above plates and linen. They were more
like a lot of elder children than servants, and felt to her more as a
mother or aunt than as a mistress.

Tom's nurse was one who took in her instruction very slowly--she seemed
to have two left hands and no head; and so Mrs. Brown kept her on longer
than usual, that she might expend her awkwardness and forgetfulness upon
those who would not judge and punish her too strictly for them.

Charity Lamb was her name. It had been the immemorial habit of the
village to christen children either by Bible names, or by those of the
cardinal and other virtues; so that one was for ever hearing in the
village street or on the green, shrill sounds of "Prudence! Prudence!
thee cum' out o' the gutter;" or, "Mercy! drat the girl, what bist thee
a-doin' wi' little Faith?" and there were Ruths, Rachels, Keziahs,
in every corner. The same with the boys: they were Benjamins, Jacobs,
Noahs, Enochs. I suppose the custom has come down from Puritan times.
There it is, at any rate, very strong still in the Vale.

Well, from early morning till dewy eve, when she had it out of him in
the cold tub before putting him to bed, Charity and Tom were pitted
against one another. Physical power was as yet on the side of Charity,
but she hadn't a chance with him wherever headwork was wanted. This
war of independence began every morning before breakfast, when Charity
escorted her charge to a neighbouring farmhouse, which supplied the
Browns, and where, by his mother's wish, Master Tom went to drink whey
before breakfast. Tom had no sort of objection to whey, but he had a
decided liking for curds, which were forbidden as unwholesome; and there
was seldom a morning that he did not manage to secure a handful of hard
curds, in defiance of Charity and of the farmer's wife. The latter good
soul was a gaunt, angular woman, who, with an old black bonnet on the
top of her head, the strings dangling about her shoulders, and her
gown tucked through her pocket-holes, went clattering about the dairy,
cheese-room, and yard, in high pattens. Charity was some sort of niece
of the old lady's, and was consequently free of the farmhouse and
garden, into which she could not resist going for the purposes of gossip
and flirtation with the heir-apparent, who was a dawdling fellow, never
out at work as he ought to have been. The moment Charity had fo