Into the innermost sanctuary of her religious life we can have no desire and have no right to pry, but the outward manifestation of such feeling is a common ground upon which all feet may tread. To complete then the sketch of this dissenting maiden we may add that her sense of duty, at all times clear and keen, was of that nature which loves the harmony of perpetual details, small and numberless. Alice had her little laws with regard to all things that she did, the making of a pie-crust or the wearing of a gown—and this habit, almost unconscious before the time of her conversion, she recognised now as the principle of her life. A disposition by nature opposed to morbidness saved her from dangers that might have been possible; although it must be owned at the same time that these endless regulations were not always convenient to others in the house. A life thus self-governed is mostly solitary, but Alice had not the warmth that desires companionship; with a truth and sincerity of nature that rendered her capable of friendship she generally preferred to go on her way alone. She was thin, slender, and quiet (to conclude her description with her portrait), and usually dressed in some dark, sober gown; without being pretty she was not inharmonious, and it was this sensation which satisfied those near her. The villagers said that ‘t’ girl was well eno’, an’ a good girl too who ’ud do her duty well, but if you wanted a face as lads ’ud like there was Thackbusk Annie was worth ten on her.’ There were a few lads, however, as it seemed, who had found the daughter of the farmer fair enough.

And now these two rivals, for once in unison, were close together in Alice’s little room, whilst without pigeons fluttered, and the yard-boy came and went, and the light of a sober noon-tide shone on the yard. The girls were silent, but both were deeply moved, each indeed more thrilled than she would have dared to say—Annie with a delirious sense of pressing danger; Alice with a secret anxiety that affected her like shame. Oh! why should she mind if Nat came to see Miss Gillan, and had been engaged to do joining work for her?.... the Gillans they were a bad lot, that they were; but it wasn’t the place o’ the boy to think o’ that. She should not mind—but it was not easy to forget that low in her heart there stirred a secret pain, a fear for one who had been an old companion, and who was yielding now to other influence than hers. For Alice had played with Nat when they were children, had reproved him for errors and tempers even then; and, although actually by a few weeks his junior, had not tried to restrain a mother’s love for him. A woman loves the position of a guardian; and such anxiety tends to tenderness.

‘Alice, I’ll go with thee,’ cried Annie suddenly, remembering at length that she had not answered; ‘I’ll hear Mr Bender, an’ all he says, it may be he’ll be able to tell me what to do. I know I’m not good, an’ I haven’t been religious; an’ when I’m angry then I forget everything; but we’ll go to-day an’ we’ll hear all he says—whatever happens that’ll do no harm to us.’ And, moved by a common impulse, the two girls rose and put their work away. They would go together, and learn to be good; whatever happened that would do no harm to them.

[CHAPTER XII
A CLASS MEETING]

THE room in which Mr Bender had chosen to hold his Meeting, for the benefit of some adherents who could not get to the town, was in a lane in the village of Harmenton, on the brink of the eminence which looks on Lindum hill. A most retired lane! which went down hill so steeply that it lay upon different levels all the way, and was further protected on one side by a wall, over which the branches of trees were green against the sky. The turning from the road was opposite a red building, so square, and with such rounded windows, that it seemed to proclaim itself a chapel, only that, to guard against the possibility of such delusion, ‘Village School’ was announced in large letters on each side of the door. If you strolled down this lane on an August afternoon, pleased with the retirement, the steepness, the quaintness of the place, you were rewarded at last by the view from a lower road, which looked over the Squire’s plantation to the valley and the town—Lindum lay there before you, shrouded with foundry-smoke, with its river flowing in the valley underneath it, and above the slope of the city and the hill the great cathedral, distinct against the sky. But the scholars of Mr Bender had no wish for idle strolling, they had hastened at once to the room where the class was held.

That was a small room—so small, it must be owned, as seriously to inconvenience the members of the class, who were, however, at that moment more disposed to think of their benefits than of their trials. When Annie and Alice entered, tired with an August walk, with the yellow corn marigolds they had gathered in their hands, they found already assembled a company of eight, including the mistress of the house, and ‘Mr Bender of the town.’ The company sat on chairs against the wall, Mr Bender at a little table in the centre of the room—Annie was too nervous in this unwonted position to observe any more than these simple facts at first. It was only when she had risen from her knees—for she and Alice had knelt down side by side—that she became aware of another experience, for every eye in the room was turned on her. With the crimson of pride and shyness on her cheek, she sat down on her wooden chair, and fixed her eyes on the ground.

‘Mr Bender,’ said Alice, rising, and going up to him, and holding out her hand with simple grace, ‘I’m glad to be able to get to the class to-day, and I’ve brought a friend with me as has not been before. She doesn’t wish to speak, ’cause she’s not been used to it’ (the girls had arranged this matter as they walked), ‘but she will be glad to listen to the others, and to hear the words that you have to say to them. And I hope Mrs Bender is better of her cold, I’m sorry she hasn’t been able to be here.’

Mr Bender thanked her, and said his mother was better, looking at her the while with considerable interest; and then his glance wandered past her to the chair against the wall on which was seated the friend whom she had introduced. He was but human, if he was a class-leader, and that may account for the fact that he looked hard and long, and that it seemed to need something of an effort for him to withdraw his glance and speak again. He said then in formal terms that he was glad to welcome the visitor, and that if she should, after all, feel disposed to speak he was sure they would all listen with interest to her words. With that, Alice returned to her seat by the side of Annie, and without any further delay the class began.

It began with a hymn, which went somewhat drearily, each verse of it being read before it was sung, an arrangement which has an invariable tendency to check any fervour in singing. The hymn was succeeded by a prayer, extempore; after which they all rose and took their seats again; and after a little preliminary cough, Mr Bender, as leader, addressed himself to speak.