ack eyes were by no means uncommon, with plenty more in
perspective when those were healed.

This was the life of the mass of people, though I am happy to say there
were many exceptions, in men, women, and children, who went to the
chapel, as all good Christians should; and lived up to the precepts of
the Good Book, as all good Christians do; among whom was the mother and
child that I began to tell you about.

And not only did the good woman go to church on the Sabbath, and on all
the appointed holidays and feasts, but she endeavored to make her life a
perpetual sabbath unto the Lord. But the child, because she was of a
tender age, could not always accompany her, nor understand why she must
always clasp her hands, and kneel down in the pew, when the vicar did
the same in his little pulpit. But she was a good child for all that, as
the story will show, and loved her mother with an exceeding love.

When she was about three years of age, her mother died. Her death,
however, was by no means unexpected. The only wonder was that she had
lived so long, she was so thin and sickly. Her husband had been dead a
little over a year. He left her nothing but his child and poverty; a
common legacy among the poorer sort of people in that country. After his
death she toiled late and early to maintain herself and babe. Many a
dawn she rose before the sun, and the sun rose there very early. Many a
night she saw the moon set, and it sets very late at certain seasons of
the year; but her labors were never done. The labors of the poor never
are until death comes. When death came to her, she rested from her work,
and her work followed her.

It was a fine day in spring when they buried her. The fresh green earth
was full of dew, the soft blue sky without a cloud. It was a day to make
one certain of immortality. Few and unconcerned were those who bore her
to the grave; they would rather have gone to a merry-making; mere
neighbors and nothing more: the dead woman left no friends, or
relatives; only her child.

When they reached the churchyard, they found the old sexton beside the
grave, leaning on his spade, ready to fill it again at the shortest
notice. The vicar put on his bands, and read the funeral service. "Dust
to dust, ashes to ashes, but the spirit to God who gave it." The coffin
was lowered into its narrow house and the earth thrown upon it, while
the minister of Christ exhorted the people around.

Little Agnes being left to hersel