ay prolong their winter day as far into the night
as they please; and that, without feeling that they are wasting their
store of light, and without being under necessity of spending the
rescued hours at any of those thrifty tasks which alone would have
justified peasant folk in sitting up late. They have the evening to use
at their pleasure.

If it is said, as my friend interested in land seemed to suggest, that
they do not know how to use it, I am not concerned to disagree. In fact,
that is my own text. On an evening last winter, having occasion to ask a
neighbour to do me a service, I knocked at his cottage door, and was
invited in. The unshaded lamp on the table cast a hard, strong light on
the appointments of the room, and in its glare the family--namely, the
man, with his wife, his mother, and his sister--were sitting round the
fire. On the table, which had no cloth, the remains of his hot
tea-supper were not cleared away--the crust of a loaf, a piece of
bacon-rind on a plate, and a teacup showed what it had been. But now he
had finished, and was resting in his shirt-sleeves, nursing his baby. In
fact, the evening's occupation had begun. The family, that is to say,
had two or three hours to spend--for it was but little past seven
o'clock--and nothing to do but to sit there and gossip. An innocent
pastime that; I have no fault to find with it, excepting that it had the
appearance of being very dull. The people looked comfortable, but there
was no liveliness in them. No trace of vivacity in their faces gave the
smallest reason to suppose that my coming had interrupted any enjoyment
of the evening. A listless contentment in being at home together, with
the day's work done and a fire to sit by, was what was suggested by the
whole bearing of the family. Their leisure was of no use to them for
recreation--for "making themselves anew," that is--or for giving play to
faculties which had lain quiet during the day's work. At the time,
however, I saw nothing significant in all this. It was just what other
cottage interiors had revealed to me on other winter evenings. The
surprising, the unexpected thing would have been to find the little
spell of leisure being joyfully used.

Shall we leave the matter there then? If we do, we shall overlook the
one feature in the situation that most particularly deserves attention.
For suppose that the cottagers in general do not know what to do with
their leisure, yet we must not argue th