abble that Bessie recollected so well. "If
you stop to think you are sure to break down," was still the warning.
After that Jack said the collect and epistle for the day, and Willie and
Tom said the gospel, and the lesser ones said psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs; and by the time this duty was accomplished Bridget had
done dinner, and arrived in holiday gown and ribbons to resume her
charge. In a few minutes Bessie was left alone with her mother. The
boys went to consult a favorite pear-tree in the orchard, and as Jack
was seen an hour or two later perched aloft amongst its gnarled branches
with a book, it is probable that he chose that retreat to pursue
undisturbed his seafaring studies by means of Marryat's novels.

"I like to keep up old-fashioned customs, Bessie," said her mother. "I
know the dear children have been taught their duty, and if they forget
it sometimes there is always a hope they may return. Mrs. Wiley and Lady
Latimer have asked for them to attend the Bible classes, but their
father was strongly against it; and I think, with him, that if they are
not quite so cleverly taught at home, there is a feeling in having
learnt at their mother's knees which will stay by them longer. It is
growing quite common for young ladies in Beechhurst to have classes in
the evening for servant-girls and others, but I cannot say I favor them:
the girls get together gossipping and stopping out late, and the
teachers are so set up with notions of superior piety that they are
quite spoilt. And they do break out in the ugliest hats and
clothes--faster than the gayest of the young ladies who don't pretend to
be so over-righteous. You have not fallen into that way, dear Bessie?"

"Oh no. I do not even teach in the Sunday-school at Kirkham. It is very
small. Mr. Forbes does not encourage the attendance of children whose
parents are able to instruct them themselves."

"I am glad to hear it. I do not approve of this system of relieving
parents of their private duties. Mr. Wiley carries it to excess, and
will not permit any poor woman to become a member of the
coal-and-clothing club who does not send her children to Sunday-school:
the doctor has refused his subscription in consequence, and divides it
amongst the recusants. For a specimen of Miss Myra Robb's evening-class
teaching we have a girl who provokes Bridget almost past her patience:
she cannot say her duty to her neighbor in the catechism, and her
practice of it is so