believe, and usually than they make believe, are always better than they
know.

This spirit prevailed at the school opening, and because of it Hester felt
happy and confident during the little function, and ever afterwards
remembered it with pleasure. For the moment Church and Dissent seemed to
forget their meannesses and jealousies. The morning sun shone without;
the breeze played through the open windows with a thousand hedgerow
scents; the two score of children ranged by their desks, fresh-faced and
in their cleanest clothes, suggested thoughts innocent and deep as the
gospel story; and if Parson Endicott was long-winded, and Mr. Sam spoke
tunelessly and accompanied his performance on the bones, so to speak--that
is, by pulling at his knuckles till the joints cracked--consolation soon
followed. For third and last came the turn of the Inspector, who had
halted on his progress through the county to attend a ceremony of the kind
in which he took delight. He had lately been transferred from the Charity
Commission to this new work, and it fell to him at a time when the selfish
ambitions die down, and in their place, if a man's heart be sound, there
springs up a fatherly tenderness for the young, with a passionate desire
to help them. Hester could not guess that this grave and courteous
gentleman, grey-haired, clean shaven, scholarly in his accent, neat even
to primness in his dress, spoke with a vision before him of an England to
be made happy by making its children happy, that the roots of the few
simple thoughts he uttered were watered by ideal springs--

"I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land."

Simple as the thoughts were, and directly spoken, the children gazed at
him with set faces, not appearing to kindle with any understanding; and
yet, after the manner of children, they were secreting a seed here and
there, to germinate in their dark little minds later on, as in due time
Hester discovered. She herself, seated at the harmonium, felt a lift of
the heart and mist gathering over her sight at the close of his quiet
peroration, and a tear fell as she stretched out her hands over the
opening chords of the 'Old Hundredth.' All sang it with a will, and
Parson Endicott with an unction he usually reserved for 'The Church's One
Foundation.'

With a brief prayer and the benediction the cer