not bear looking into by those who feared God and
respected human law. Bridgepath had been now for a good many years a
_privileged_ place in the eyes of poachers, gamblers, and Sabbath-
breakers, where the devil's active servants could hold their festivals,
especially on the Lord's day, without fear of interruption from
policeman or preacher. And the women were as bad as the men; they
"loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." So
the new school and reading-room arose amidst the sneers and loudly-
expressed disgust of the majority of the population; the proprietors of
the beer-shops being specially bitter in their denunciations of this
uncalled-for innovation on the good old times and habits, so long the
favoured lot of a primitive and unsophisticated people, who had been
quite content when left to their own devices, and could do perfectly
well without these new-fashioned schemes, if only good people would just
let them alone. The good people, however, saw the matter in a different
light; and so, spite of all the grumbling and outspoken dissatisfaction,
the buildings were completed in the spring, and the new schoolmaster and
his wife took up their abode in Bridgepath.

Colonel Dawson had chosen his man carefully, and duly warned him that he
would find his post at first no bed of roses. To which the master
replied that he was not afraid of encountering his share of thorns; and
that he doubted not but that with prayer, patience, and perseverance,
there would be both flowers and fruit in Bridgepath in due time. As for
opposition, he rather enjoyed a little of it, and trusted to be enabled
to live it down. The colonel was satisfied, for he knew that he had
chosen a man who had already proved himself to be no mere talker. So
Bridgepath looked on in sulky wonder; but soon was constrained to
acknowledge that, in their new schoolmaster, the right man had been put
into the right place.

And now the colonel was very anxious to get the help of some earnest-
hearted Christian lady, who would visit the sick and needy in the
neglected hamlet, carrying with her Christ in her heart and on her lips;
for his sister was too old to undertake such a work. His thoughts
turned to Mary Stansfield. He would go and have a talk with the old
lady her aunt about it.

CHAPTER FOUR.

WHAT IS UNSELFISHNESS?

Colonel Dawson took a deep interest both in Miss Stansfield and her
niece. He understood them both,