been constantly praying that Bess might 'find peace',
for she was still a stranger to salvation. One night, she
suddenly called out, rather crossly, 'What are you two whispering
about? Do go to sleep,' to which Ann replied: 'We are praying for
you.' 'How do you know,' answered Bess, 'that I don't believe?' And
then she told them that, that very night, when she was sitting in
the shop, she had closed with God's offer of redemption. Late in
the night as it was, Ann and Drusilla could do no less than go in
and waken Mary Grace, whom, however, they found awake, praying,
she too, for the conversion of Bess. They told her the good news,
and all four, kneeling in the darkness, gave thanks aloud to God
for his infinite mercy.

It was Mary Grace Burmington who now became the romantic friend
of Miss Marks, and a sort of second benevolence to me. She must
have been under thirty years of age; she wax very small, and she
was distressingly deformed in the spine, but she had an animated,
almost a sparkling countenance. When we first arrived in the
village, Mary Grace was only just recovering from a gastric fever
which had taken her close to the grave. I remember hearing that
the vicar, a stout and pompous man at whom we always glared
defiance, went, in Mary Grace's supposed extremity, to the
Burmingtons' shop-door, and shouted: 'Peace be to this house,'
intending to offer his ministrations, but that Ann, who was in
one of her tantrums, positively hounded him from the doorstep and
down the garden, in her passionate nonconformity. Mary Grace,
however, recovered, and soon became, not merely Miss Marks'
inseparable friend, but my Father's spiritual factotum. He found
it irksome to visit the 'saints' from house to house, and Mary
Grace Burmington gladly assumed this labour. She proved a most
efficient coadjutor; searched out, cherished and confirmed any of
those, especially the young, who were attracted by my Father's
preaching, and for several years was a great joy and comfort to
us all. Even when her illness so increased that she could no
longer rise from her bed, she was a centre of usefulness and
cheerfulness from that retreat, where she 'received', in a kind
of rustic state, under a patchwork coverlid that was like a
basket of flowers.

My Father, ever reflecting on what could be done to confirm my
spiritual vocation, to pin me down, as it were, beyond any
possibility of escape, bethought him that it would accustom me to
what he