Her mother, too, asked what Jessie was about, and though she did not say anything against her employment, their looking on, and the expression on Grace's face, worried Jessie so much that she could not think, and only put a slip of paper into her own book at each she found. The chapter she had chosen was the Parable of the Sower, on which she had once heard a sermon. She was amazed to find how many parallel passages there were, and how beautifully they explained one another when she made time for comparing them on Sunday morning. She saw herself beforehand expounding them to the children, and winning their hearts, as her friend in the hospital had described, and she was quite ready in her neat black silk and fur jacket, with a little blue velvet hat, when Amy Lee came to call for her, in her grey merino, black cloth coat, and little hat to match.
They met Miss Manners at the school door, and were pleasantly greeted, and taken into the large cheerful room, all hung round with maps and pictures, where the classes were assembling, and one or two of the other teachers had come.
The bell was heard ringing, and while the children trooped in, Miss Manners showed Jessie a chair with some books laid open upon it, the class register on the top, and said:
"I am sorry there has not been time to talk over your work this week; but I have laid out the books for you, and if you are in any difficulty come and ask me."
By this time the children had come in and taken their places, and Jessie was pleased to see that her class was of children of eight or nine years old—not such little ones as Amy had threatened her with. Miss Manners went to the harmonium and gave out a Sunday morning hymn, which was very sweetly sung, and then she read prayers, everybody kneeling, and making the responses, so that Jessie enjoyed it greatly, and felt quite refreshed by the prayer for a blessing on the teachers and the taught. Then Miss Manners told the eight little girls who stood in a row that Miss Hollis would teach them, and she hoped they would be very good and steady and obedient, and say their lessons perfectly.
Jessie knew all but two who came from the other end of the parish, and were not customers of her mother—at least she knew what families they belonged to, and had only to learn their Christian names from her list.
"Collect, please teacher," said the first girl, Susan Bray, very much in the voice in which she would have said "Candles, please miss," in the shop.
The Prayer-book was uppermost, and Jessie found she had to hear the Collect for the day repeated by five perfectly, by two rather badly, and one broke down altogether. The question-book lay open under it. Some of the questions were very easy, but of others Jessie was not sure that the children were right when they replied to some quite glibly, and she was not sure how to help them in others.
Then followed the opening of books again. Jessie was longing to give out all she had to say about the Sower, and began bidding them turn to it in St. Matthew, but Susan Bray stopped her most decisively. "Oh! please teacher, we've done that ever so long ago. We always reads the Gospel for the day, and here's the question-book, and it's got answers." And she thrust it right under the nose of Jessie, who by this time did not quite love Miss Susan Bray. She had plainly been sharp enough to see when her teacher was at fault.
The children read the Gospel for the day. It was Refreshing Sunday, so it was not a difficult one; the children were ready with the answers till the application came, and then Jessie had again to help them, which she did by reading the printed answers and making them repeat them after her, word for word. While she was doing this with Mary Smithers, who certainly was dulness itself, at one end of the class, there was a whispering at the other, and she saw two children trying on each other's gloves, and she quickly put an end to that, and went on with another question and answer. The moment her eye was off Susan Bray and Lily Bell, however, they began comparing some gay cards. Jessie turned on them: "You are playing with those things. Give them to me."