we have no locusts in England, and I don’t think they’d agree with Master Thurstan if we had, I will come and make the pudding; but I shall try and do it well, not only for him to like it, but because everything may be done in a right way or a wrong; the right way is to do it as well as we can, as in God’s sight; the wrong is to do it in a self-seeking spirit, which either leads us to neglect it to follow out some device of our own for our own ends, or to give up too much time and thought to it both before and after the doing.’  Well!  I thought of old missus’s words this morning, when I saw you making the beds.  You sighed so, you could not half shake the pillows; your heart was not in your work; and yet it was the duty God had set you, I reckon; I know it’s not the work parsons preach about; though I don’t think they go so far off the mark when they read, ’whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, that do with all thy might.’  Just try for a day to think of all the odd jobs as to be done well and truly as in God’s sight, not just slurred over anyhow, and you’ll go through them twice as cheerfully, and have no thought to spare for sighing or crying.”

Sally bustled off to set on the kettle for tea, and felt half ashamed, in the quiet of the kitchen, to think of the oration she had made in the parlour.  But she saw with much satisfaction, that henceforward Ruth nursed her boy with a vigour and cheerfulness that were reflected back from him; and the household work was no longer performed with a languid indifference, as if life and duty were distasteful.  Miss Benson had her share in this improvement, though Sally placidly took all the credit to herself.  One day as she and Ruth sat together, Miss Benson spoke of the child, and thence went on to talk about her own childhood.  By degrees they spoke of education, and the book-learning that forms one part of it; and the result was that Ruth determined to get up early all through the bright summer mornings, to acquire the knowledge hereafter to be given to her child.  Her mind was uncultivated, her reading scant; beyond the mere mechanical arts of education she knew nothing; but she had a refined taste, and excellent sense and judgment to separate the true from the false.  With these qualities, she set to work under Mr. Benson’s directions.  She read in the early morning the books that he marked out; she trained herself with strict perseverance to do all thoroughly; she did not attempt to acquire any foreign language, although her ambition was to learn Latin, in order to teach it to her boy.  Those summer mornings were happy, for she was learning neither to look backwards nor forwards, but to live faithfully and earnestly in the present.  She rose while the hedge-sparrow was yet singing his reveil to his mate; she dressed and opened her window, shading the soft-blowing air and the sunny eastern light from her baby.  If she grew tired, she went and looked at him, and all her thoughts were holy prayers for him.  Then she would gaze awhile out of the high upper window on to the moorlands, that swelled in waves one behind the other, in the grey, cool morning light.  These were her occasional relaxations, and after them she returned with strength to her work.