“I hope she will do her work, any how,” said Selina, breaking into the conversation rather crossly.  “I’m sure I don’t see the good of wasting time over teaching Elizabeth to write, when there’s so much to be done in the house by one and all of us, from Monday morning till Saturday night.”

“Ay, that’s it,” answered Hilary, meditatively.  “I don’t see how I ever shall get time to teach her, and she is so tired of nights when the work is all done; she’ll be dropping asleep with the pen in her hand—­I have done it myself before now.”

Ay, in those days when, trying so hard to “improve her mind,” and make herself a little more equal and companionable to another mind she knew, she had, after her daily house cares and her six hours of school teaching, attempted at nine P. M. to begin close study on her own account.  And though with her strong will she succeeded tolerably, still, as she told Johanna, she could well understand how slow was the, “march of intellect” (a phrase which had just then come up) among day laborers and the like; and how difficult it was for these Mechanics Institutions, which were now talked so much of, to put any new ideas into the poor tired heads, rendered sluggish and stupid with hard bodily labor, “Suppose I were to hold my Polynesian Academy on a Sunday?” and she looked inquiringly at her sisters, especially Johanna.

Now the Misses Leaf were old fashioned country folk, who lived before the words Sabbatarian and un-Sabbatarian had ever got into the English language.  They simply “remembered the Sabbath day to keep it holy;” they arranged so as to make it for all the household a day of rest:  and they went regularly to church once—­sometimes Selina and Hilary went twice.  For the intervening hours, their usual custom was to take an afternoon walk in the fields; begun chiefly for Ascott’s sake, to keep the lad out of mischief, and put into his mind better thoughts than he was likely to get from his favorite Sunday recreation of sitting on the wall throwing stones.  After he left for London there was Elizabeth to be thought of; and they decided that the best Sabbath duty for the little servant was to go and see her mother.  So they gave her every Sunday afternoon free; only requiring that she should be at home punctually after church time, at eight o’clock.  But from thence till bedtime was a blank two hours, which, Hilary had noticed, Elizabeth not infrequently spent in dozing over the fire.

“And I wonder,” said she, giving the end of her long meditation out loud, “whether going to sleep is not as much Sabbath breaking as learning to write?  What do you say, Johanna?”

Johanna, simple, God-fearing woman as she was, to whom faith and love came as natural as the breath she drew, had never perplexed herself with the question.  She only smiled acquiescence.  But Selina was greatly shocked.  Teaching to write on a Sunday!  Bringing the week day work into the day of rest!  Doing one’s own pleasure on the holy day!  She thought it exceedingly wrong.  Such a thing had never been heard of in their house.  Whatever else might be said of them, the Leafs were always a respectable family as to keeping Sunday.  Nobody could say that even poor Henry—­