ication than he had.

"Did 'ee ever hear of such a tale," asked one of a group of girls
sitting together on a bank, while the little ones, of whom they were
supposed to be in charge, played and rolled on the grass, "as for a lot
o' boys to go to school again o' their own free-will."

"I don't see no good in it," another said, "not for the schooling
they'll get. But if it teaches them to keep out o' the publics, it will
be good for their wives some day."

"It will that," put in another earnestly; "my! how feyther did beat
mother last night; he were as drunk as could be, and he went on awful."

"I think sometimes men are worse nor beasts," another said.

"Do 'ee know I've heard," Sarah Shepherd said, "that the new
schoolmistress be a-going to open a night-school for girls, to teach
sewing, and cutting out, and summat o' cooking." There was a general
exclamation of astonishment, and so strange was the news that it was
some time before any one ventured a comment on it.

"What dost think o't?" Sarah questioned at last.

"Only sewing and cutting out and cooking and such like, and not
lessons?" Bess Thompson asked doubtfully.

"Not reg'lar lessons I mean. She'll read out while the girls work, and
perhaps they will read out by turns; not lessons, you know, but stories
and tales, and travels, and that kind o' book. What dost think o't?"

"'Twould be a good thing to know how to make dresses," Fanny Jones, who
was fond of finery, remarked.

"And other things too," put in Peggy Martin, "and to cook too. Mother
ain't a good hand at cooking and it puts feyther in such tempers, and
sometimes I hardly wonder. I shall go if some others go. But be'est sure
it be true, Sally?"

"Harry told me," she said, "and I think Jack Simpson told him as the
schoolmaster said so."

The news was too important to be kept to themselves, and there was soon
a general move homewards.

There Sally Shepherd's story received confirmation. The schoolmistress
had been going from house to house, asking all the women who had
daughters between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, to let them attend a
working class in the schoolroom two evenings a week, and the answer she
almost always received was, "Well, I ha' no objection to my lass going
if she be willing; and I think it would be very good for her to know how
to make her clothes; I can hardly do a stitch myself."

Mrs. Dodgson had also informed the women that any of them who liked to
supply the mat