Little Margery was very happy in being with Mr. and Mrs. Smith, who were very charitable and good to her, and had agreed to bring her up with their family: but as soon as that tyrant of the parish, that Graspall, heard of her being there, he applied first to Mr. Smith, and threatened to reduce his tithes if he kept her; and after that he spoke to Sir Timothy, who sent Mr. Smith a peremptory message by his servant, that he should send back Meanwell's girl to be kept by her relations, and not harbor her in the parish. This so distressed Mr. Smith, that he shed tears, and cried, "Lord, have mercy on the poor!"
The prayers of the righteous fly upwards, and reach unto the throne of heaven, as will be seen by the sequel.
Mrs. Smith was also greatly concerned at being thus obliged to discard poor Little Margery. She kissed her, and cried, as did also Mr. Smith; but they were obliged to send her away, for the people who had ruined her father could at any time have ruined them.
IV
HOW LITTLE MARGERY LEARNED TO READ, AND BY DEGREES TAUGHT OTHERS
Little Margery saw how good and how wise Mr. Smith was, and concluded that this was owing to his great learning, therefore she wanted of all things to learn to read. For this purpose she used to meet the little boys as they came from school, borrow their books, and sit down and read till they returned. By this means she got more learning than any of her playmates, and laid the following scheme for instructing those who were more ignorant than herself. She found that only the following letters were required to spell all the words; but as some of these letters are large, and some small, she with her knife cut out of several pieces of wood ten sets of each of these:
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z.
And having got an old spelling book, she made her companions set up all the words they wanted to spell, and after that she taught them to compose sentences. "You know what a sentence is, my dear. 'I will be good' is a sentence; and is made up, as you see, of several words."
I once went her rounds with her, and was highly diverted, as you may see, if you please to look into the next chapter.