The school at Little Yafford has thriven under Emmanuel Joyce’s care, and the widow and her son still live happily in the cottage adjoining the school-house. Emmanuel is not solely dependent on his modest stipend as parish schoolmaster. He has been successful in his literary efforts. His books, all written for the young, have become immediately popular. His style is natural and pleasing, full of life and colour. That severe self-training he underwent in the days when he fancied himself a poet has stood him in good stead. His reading has taken a wider range, under the direction of Clement Dulcimer, and there is a richness of illustration in his later books that has a charm even for the unlearned. Mrs. Joyce’s pride in her son is boundless. She would like to see him married, but has not yet discovered that paragon of female excellence worthy to be his wife. While she is looking out for that personification of all the virtues, Emmanuel grows more and more wedded to his books, his chimney corner, his meerschaum pipe, and the duties of that station which Providence has allotted to him.
Miss Coyle has departed this life, in the odour of sanctity, and her memory lives in the minds of Yafford people as a highly genteel person, who paid ready money for all her small requirements, was strict in her attendance at the services of her church, never carried a parcel, and was never seen out of doors without her gloves.
THE END.
J. AND W. RIDER, PRINTERS, LONDON
Corrections
The first line indicates the original, the second the correction.
p. [154]
- husband’s commercial allies of the past—the Wigzell’s,
- husband’s commercial allies of the past—the Wigzells,
p. [192]