Page:Hannah More (1887 Charlotte Mary Yonge British).djvu/107

Rh when a girl of good character married, she received from it five shillings, a pair of white stockings, and a Bible.

The same plan was carried out in each of the other places as they became ripe for it, and more became added to the list. This year, 1790, was the first for twenty-four that Hannah did not make her usual sojourn in London, being too much engrossed with her work to go farther than Bath. Even when not visiting the schools, she had enough to do in writing text-books for them, and in trying to train the teachers, sometimes successfully, sometimes in vain, for some turned out slack and hopelessly inefficient, while the misguided zeal of others was to cause her much trouble.

Good Mrs. Baker was a tower of strength, and Cheddar became a sort of normal school. Also the old vicar of Shipham died, and his successor, Mr. Jones, was no absentee, but a hearty and zealous worker.

Axbridge was the next place attempted. It was a small stocking-making town, with a corporation very poor, yet so luxurious as never to admit a plain joint of meat at its civic banquets. The fighting vicar, however, was civil to the ladies, and sanctioned their labours. Nor did the corporation reject them; so that they were able to begin with a hundred poor little dirty, half-starved creatures. A new and promising curate,