Your grandfather died shortly afterwards, and a year later George wrote to his mother:— “I feel that we have great cause for gratitude and rejoicing _as a family_; I mean for the way in which we hang together, and the utter absence of any subject of discord or disagreement between any of our members. I think we may well be happy, even while thinking of what happened this time last year, as I have done very frequently of late.” He would have been impatient, almost angry, if anyone had told him that the “hanging together,” at which he rejoiced, was mainly his own doing. In the village, too, he was beginning to find occupation of the most useful kind. Thus he opened a village reading-room for the labourers, which was furnished with books and papers, and lighted and warmed, every evening from seven to nine. “Hitherto it is a great success,” he writes in 1868: “we have fifty members who subscribe 2_d._ a week, and we give them a cup of coffee and a biscuit for 1_d._ Some of them drink five or six cups a night. Whether coffee will continue to beat beer I don’t know, but at present it keeps them from the public-house, and saves their wages for their wives. Some of them are very fond of reading, and the rest play draughts and dominoes.” Then there were frequent “laundry entertainments,”—penny readings, or theatrical performances in the big laundry,—of which his sister writes: “The boys and Mr. Phillips and I used to make the music, but the great hits of the evening were always George’s. He used to recite ‘The One-horse Chay,’ or some Ingoldsby Legend, or ‘The Old Woman of Berkeley,’ or sing a comic song, and the people liked his performances better than anything. Like all very reserved people, he acted wonderfully well, and always knew how every part should be done, so he used to coach us all when a play was being got up. But he would never criticise unless asked: he always thought that people knew as well as he did how to do their parts, but they did not. He was always so droll on these occasions. When a performance was proposed by the boys, he used to say it was too much trouble, and that he wanted to be left quiet. But they always got their way, and when it was inevitable he would learn his entire part while we others were mastering a page. I was always whip, because I could not stand doing anything by halves, and used to drive everyone mercilessly till the scenes began to go smoothly. He would sometimes rehearse his part almost under his breath, gabbling it off with the book in his hand, and then I would remonstrate, and he would go through it splendidly, as well as on the day of performance.”