n appearance to some of the mothers
they run up to; and as to learning, the whole parish can read and write,
and the younger ones can send out a letter that would be no disgrace to
a lady or a gentleman.

There is a machine, with its long tail of spikes, coughing along as it
blows off the steam at Farmer Goodenough's. No one dreams of meddling
with it to do any harm. Wages are better, food is cheaper, and there
are comforts in the house of every one tolerably thrifty that the
grandmothers look at as novelties. John and George Hewlett, carpenters
and builders, have a handsome shop and large workshop in the street.

All this has come in the way of gradual change, brought about not by
rioting, but by the force of opinion, and the action of those in
authority.

But how have people been fitted to make a good use of these things--not
to waste them, but to use them as God's good gifts? There has been a
quiet influence at work ever since "they Gobblealls" came up the
roughness of the lanes, and "Mary's approach" was given up.

Captain Edmund, and Mary his wife, lie in their quiet graves, but the
work they did--by justice, by kindness, by teaching, by example--has
gone on growing, and Miss Sophia looks at it, and is thankful, as she
still gives her best in love and experience to the young generation who
are with her and look up to her for help and counsel.

The church is beautiful now, not only to look at, nor merely in the
well-performed music of the services, but in the number and devotion of
the worshippers and communicants. Of course, all is not perfect in the
place--never, never will it be so in this world; but the boys and youths
can, and often are, saved from a fit of thoughtless heathenism by their
clubs and their guilds, and the better families are mostly communicants.
Blots there are, and the vicar sometimes desponds when some fresh evil
crops up; but Miss Sophia always tells him to hope, and that--

"The many prayers, the holy tears, the nurture in the Word,
Have not in vain ascended up before the Gracious Lord."

FINIS.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Carbonels, by Charlotte M. Yonge

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