place they could find for
the purpose was the wash-house and laundry. Once in five weeks two
women, in high white muslin caps and checked aprons, of whom Betsy
Seddon was one, Betty Pucklechurch the other, came to assist the maids
in getting up the family linen--a tremendous piece of work. A tub was
set on the Saturday, with ashes placed in a canvas bag on a frame above;
water was poured on it, and ran through, so as to be fitted for the
operations which began at five o'clock in the morning, and absorbed all
the women of the establishment, and even old Pucklechurch, who was
called on to turn the mangle.

Except during this formidable week, the wash-house and laundry were
empty, and hither were invited the children. About twenty, of all ages,
came--the boys in smocks, the girls in print frocks and pinafores, one
in her mother's black bonnet, others in coarse straw or sun-bonnets.
All had shoes of some sort, but few had stockings, though the long
frocks concealed the deficiencies, and some wore stocking-legs without
feet.

They made very low bows, or pulled their forelocks, most grinned and
looked sheepish, and a very little one began to cry. It did not seem
very promising, but Mary and Dora began by asking all their names, and
saying they hoped to be better friends. They, for the most part, knew
nothing, with the exception of George Hewlett's two eldest, Bessie
Mole's girls, and one sharp boy of Dan Hewlett's, also the Pucklechurch
grandchildren; but even these had very dim notions, and nobody but the
Hewletts could tell a word of the Catechism.

To teach them the small commencement of doctrine comprised in the
earliest pages of "First Truths" was all that could be attempted, as
well as telling them a Bible story, to which the few intelligent ones
listened with pleasure, and Johnnie Hewlett showed that he had already
heard it--"from aunt," he said. He was a sickly, quiet-looking boy,
very different from his younger brother, Jem, who had organised a revolt
among the general multitude before long. None of these had enough
civilisation to listen or be attentive for five minutes together, and
when Mrs Carbonel looked round on hearing a howl, there was a pitched
battle going on between Jem and Lizzie Seddon over her little sister,
who had been bribed into coming with a lump of gingerbread, which the
boy was abstracting. He had been worked up enough even to lose his awe
of the ladies, and to kick and struggle when D