re heartily tired of home, where there was washing
to be done, and their eldest sister Patty banged them about, and they
had no peace from the great heavy baby. Besides, there had been a talk
of prizes at Christmas, and they weren't going to let them Moles and
Pucklechurches get the whole of them. Moreover, others were going back,
so why should not they?

Yes, Nanny Barton's children "did terrify her so, she had no peace."
And Betsy Seddon's Janie had torn her frock as there was no bearing, and
even the Dan Hewletts were going back. Little Judy had cried to go, and
her Aunt Judith had trimmed up the heads of her sisters, for Dora
Carbonel had not been a first-rate hair-cutter, and it was nearly the
same with every one, except the desperate truant, Ben Shales, and the
cobbler's little curly girl, who was sent all the way to Downhill to
Miss Minifer's genteel academy, where she learnt bead-work and very
little besides.

The affair seemed to have done less harm than Captain Carbonel had
expected, yet, on the other hand, the motives that brought most of the
scholars back were not any real desire for improvement, but rather the
desire of being interested, and the hope of rewards. It would take a
long time to make the generality of the people regard "they Gobblealls"
as anything but curious kind of creatures to be humoured, for the sake
of what could be got out of them.

Of the positive love of God and their neighbour, and the strong sense of
duty that actuated them, few of the Uphill inhabitants had the least
notion. It would be much to say that if these motives were always
present with Edmund and Mary, it was so in the same degree with Dora and
Sophy; but to them the school children were the great interest,
occupation, and delight, and their real affection and sympathy, so far
as they understood, were having their effect.

They were hard at work at those same prizes, which filled almost as much
of their minds as they could those of the expectant recipients, and
occupied their fingers a good deal. And, after all, what would the
modern scholar think of those same prizes? The prime ones of all, the
Bible and Prayer-book, were of course, in themselves as precious then as
now, but each was bound in the very plainest of dark-brown calf, though,
to tell the truth, far stronger than their successors, and with the
leaves much better sewn in. There was only one of each of these, for
Susan Pucklechurch and Johnnie Hewlett,