‘Alice, I’ll go with thee,’ cried Annie suddenly, remembering at length that she had not answered; ‘I’ll hear Mr Bender, an’ all he says, it may be he’ll be able to tell me what to do. I know I’m not good, an’ I haven’t been religious; an’ when I’m angry then I forget everything; but we’ll go to-day an’ we’ll hear all he says--whatever happens that’ll do no harm to us.’ And, moved by a common impulse, the two girls rose and put their work away. They would go together, and learn to be good; whatever happened that would do no harm to them. CHAPTER XII A CLASS MEETING THE room in which Mr Bender had chosen to hold his Meeting, for the benefit of some adherents who could not get to the town, was in a lane in the village of Harmenton, on the brink of the eminence which looks on Lindum hill. A most retired lane! which went down hill so steeply that it lay upon different levels all the way, and was further protected on one side by a wall, over which the branches of trees were green against the sky. The turning from the road was opposite a red building, so square, and with such rounded windows, that it seemed to proclaim itself a chapel, only that, to guard against the possibility of such delusion, ‘Village School’ was announced in large letters on each side of the door. If you strolled down this lane on an August afternoon, pleased with the retirement, the steepness, the quaintness of the place, you were rewarded at last by the view from a lower road, which looked over the Squire’s plantation to the valley and the town--Lindum lay there before you, shrouded with foundry-smoke, with its river flowing in the valley underneath it, and above the slope of the city and the hill the great cathedral, distinct against the sky. But the scholars of Mr Bender had no wish for idle strolling, they had hastened at once to the room where the class was held. That was a small room--so small, it must be owned, as seriously to inconvenience the members of the class, who were, however, at that moment more disposed to think of their benefits than of their trials. When Annie and Alice entered, tired with an August walk, with the yellow corn marigolds they had gathered in their hands, they found already assembled a company of eight, including the mistress of the house, and ‘Mr Bender of the town.’ The company sat on chairs against the wall, Mr Bender at a little table in the centre of the room--Annie was too nervous in this unwonted position to observe any more than these simple facts at first. It was only when she had risen from her knees--for she and Alice had knelt down side by side--that she became aware of another experience, for every eye in the room was turned on her. With the crimson of pride and shyness on her cheek, she sat down on her wooden chair, and fixed her eyes on the ground.