"I must get up a little appropriate small-talk first," laughed her cousin. "I should feel almost as much out of my element in a cottage as one of your plough-boys would do in a ball-room. I could neither speak of amusements, nor fashions, nor pictures, nor parties; I cannot imagine what one would say after the first ’Good morning’ and the usual observations on the weather." "Oh! how diverting it would be," cried Flora, with sudden animation, "to set you to teach a class at the school!" "I’d make it a dancing-class at once, and substitute graceful courtesies for the little short bob which always reminds me of Jack in the box; and the little boys should learn to make elegant bows, instead of pulling down their own heads by tugging at the fore-locks!" "You would not be so hard upon the simple salutations of our little rustics, Ada, had you seen our village in the old time, when a bob or a bow was an unheard-of piece of politeness." "It is a very pretty village," said Ada, as the picturesque row of white cottages opened on their view; the latticed windows glowing bright in the sun’s setting rays, the small neat gardens gay with many a flower; while in the foreground the church, of simple but graceful architecture, raised its glittering spire towards heaven. "It was a very different place twelve years ago," said Flora, "when my dear parents first came to reside here. There was not a church then within four miles, and the people here lived in a state of almost heathen darkness. The cottages were miserable hovels, I have heard, and seemed purposely contrived to keep out sun and air, and admit the snow and the rain. Half of the children had never been baptized, and ran about bare-foot and bare-headed, as dirty and as ignorant as the very pigs with which they associated! The only thriving establishments were the ale-houses, and the character of the place was altogether so bad that it was really dangerous to be out after dark." "And what worked such a wonderful change?" "Oh, everything was gradually done, by patience and untiring zeal and benevolence. My dear father expended much money, and more time, in improving the dwellings of the poor, combating prejudices, inviting the lazy to exertion, raising a spirit of order. My mother exerted herself amongst the women. They regarded her with suspicion at first, and were very jealous of interference. They seemed to consider it as their privilege to be ragged and dirty. But nothing could withstand the power of her gentleness and kindness. The first great step was gathering some of the children to a little class in our own house." "Oh!" exclaimed Ada, "and could your mother really endure to have a set of ragged, bare-footed little wretches, with unwashed faces and uncombed hair, in her house?"