o have none of those comforts you have around you. I feel that I am
called back to those amongst whom my lot was first cast. I feel drawn
again towards the hills where I used to be blessed in carrying the word
of life to the sinful and desolate."

"You feel! Yes," said Mrs. Poyser, returning from a parenthetic glance
at the cows, "that's allays the reason I'm to sit down wi', when you've
a mind to do anything contrairy. What do you want to be preaching for
more than you're preaching now? Don't you go off, the Lord knows where,
every Sunday a-preaching and praying? An' haven't you got Methodists
enow at Treddles'on to go and look at, if church-folks's faces are too
handsome to please you? An' isn't there them i' this parish as you've
got under hand, and they're like enough to make friends wi' Old Harry
again as soon as your back's turned? There's that Bessy Cranage--she'll
be flaunting i' new finery three weeks after you're gone, I'll be bound.
She'll no more go on in her new ways without you than a dog 'ull stand
on its hind-legs when there's nobody looking. But I suppose it doesna
matter so much about folks's souls i' this country, else you'd be for
staying with your own aunt, for she's none so good but what you might
help her to be better."

There was a certain something in Mrs. Poyser's voice just then, which
she did not wish to be noticed, so she turned round hastily to look at
the clock, and said: "See there! It's tea-time; an' if Martin's i' the
rick-yard, he'll like a cup. Here, Totty, my chicken, let mother put
your bonnet on, and then you go out into the rick-yard and see if
Father's there, and tell him he mustn't go away again without coming t'
have a cup o' tea; and tell your brothers to come in too."

Totty trotted off in her flapping bonnet, while Mrs. Poyser set out the
bright oak table and reached down the tea-cups.

"You talk o' them gells Nancy and Molly being clever i' their work,"
she began again; "it's fine talking. They're all the same, clever or
stupid--one can't trust 'em out o' one's sight a minute. They want
somebody's eye on 'em constant if they're to be kept to their work.
An' suppose I'm ill again this winter, as I was the winter before last?
Who's to look after 'em then, if you're gone? An' there's that blessed
child--something's sure t' happen to her--they'll let her tumble into
the fire, or get at the kettle wi' the boiling lard in't, or some
mischief as 'ull lame her for life; an' it'l