“The children? the Sunday scholars?”
“Oh, every one that is big enough comes to school now, here, on Sunday. If only the teaching were better—”
“Have you sent out any more pupils to service?”
“Not many. There is Willie Brown, trying to be Dr. Spencer’s little groom,” said Ethel.
“But I am afraid it will take a great deal of the doctor’s patience to train him,” added Margaret.
“It is hard,” said Dr. May. “He did it purely to oblige Ethel; and, I tell her, when he lames the pony, I shall expect her to buy another for him, out of the Cocksmoor funds.”
Ethel and Mary broke out in a chorus of defence of Willie Brown.
“There was Ben Wheeler,” said Mary, “who went to work in the quarries; and the men could not teach him to say bad words, because the young ladies told him not.”
“The young ladies have not quite done nothing,” said Dr. May, smiling.
“These are only little stray things, and Cherry has done the chief of them,” said Ethel. “Oh, it is grievously bad still,” she added, sighing. “Such want of truth, such ungoverned tongues and tempers, such godlessness altogether! It is only surface-work, taming the children at school, while they have such homes; and their parents, even if they do come where they might learn better, are always liable to be upset, as they call it—turned out of their places in church, and they will not run the chance.”