"I suppose it would be a pity to check her, but do you imagine that she
knows anything?"

"I don't know; but she is not at all a stupid girl, and she cannot go
far wrong with the questions on the Catechism and Gospels that I shall
give her. Indeed I had thought of asking her and Margaret Roller, and,
perhaps, Amy Lee, to come and prepare the lessons here on Friday
evenings after church."

"A good plan," said Mr. Somers, "if it be not giving you too much to
do."

"Not a bit, especially at this time of year, when nobody wants me in the
evenings. My only doubt is whether it is not keeping the girls out too
late, but I will see whether it can be managed. The children might be
better taught, and the teachers might learn something themselves in this
indirect way."

Perhaps this was Miss Dora's way of acting on the sermon, but she could
not begin that week, as a friend was coming to spend the Friday with
her.

Meantime Grace Hollis had joined the working party that met every
Tuesday afternoon for an hour to make clothes for a very poor district
in London. She had been sometimes known to say that it was all waste of
time to make things and send them away to thriftless, shiftless folk;
but she had heard something of the love of our neighbour, and our
membership with the rest of our Lord's Body, which had touched her
heart. So she brought her thimble and needle, to join the working party
who sat round the Rectory dining-table. Mrs. Somers and Miss Manners
shook hands, made her welcome, and found her a seat and some work. Grace
looked about her to be sure who the party were. Mrs. Nowell, the
gardener's wife, sat next to her. Then came little Miss Agnes from the
Hall, sewing hard away, and Lucy Drew from Chalk-pit Farm, who was about
her age, next to her, and old Miss Pemberton knitting.

"A mixed lot," said Grace to herself, and then her eye lit upon deformed
Naomi Norris, of whom she did not approve at all. Did not the girl come
of a low dissenting family, and had not her father the presumption to
keep a little shop in Hazel Lane which took away half the custom,
especially as they pretended to make toffee? Meanwhile here was Miss
Wenlock, the governess at the squire's, and Miss Dora reading aloud to
the party in turn. It was the history of some mission work in London,
and Miss Lee, who was there, listened with great pleasure, as did many
of the others. Indeed she well might, for her eldest sister's son hoped
one day t