"Yes, sir; I had just sent her home. They had been treating of her, and she had had a drop too much. She wasn't in a proper state." "Proper state! No! I should think not! It is a regular shame and disgrace that you should encourage such goings on! Where's the woman's husband? Has no one got the humanity to come and take her home?" Oldfellow called gruffly to some of the troop, who came reeling out to the door, and told them it was time to be off, and that some one, "You Tirzah had best see to that there Barton 'oman." Captain Carbonel wished to keep his ladies from the sight, but they were watching eagerly, and could not help seeing that it was Tirzah Todd, more gipsy-looking than ever, who came out. Not, however, walking as if intoxicated, and quite able to comprehend Captain Carbonel's brief explanation where to find her companion. "Ah, poor Nanny!" she said cheerfully. "She's got no head! A drop is too much for her." The chaise door was shut, and they went on, Dora and Mary shocked infinitely, and hardly able to speak of what they had seen. And they did not feel any happier when the next day, as Mary was feeding the chickens, Nanny came up to her, curtseying and civil. "Please, ma'am, I'm much obliged to you for seeing to me last night. I just went in to see if my husband was there, as was gone to Poppleby with some sheep, and they treated me, ma'am. And that there Tirzah and Bet Bracken, they was a-singing songs, as it was a shame to hear, so I ups and rebukes them, and she flies at me like a catamount, ma'am; and then Mr Oldfellow, he puts me out, ma'am, as was doing no harms as innocent as a lamb." "Well," said Mrs Carbonel, "it was no place for any woman to be in, and we were grieved, I cannot tell you how much, that you should be there. You had better take care; you know drunkenness is a really wicked sin in God's sight." "Only a little overtaken--went to see for my husband," muttered Nanny. "I didn't take nigh so much as that there Tirzah Todd, that is there with Bet Bracken every night of her life, to sing--" "Never mind other people. Their doing wrong doesn't make you right." "Only a drop," argued Nanny. "And that there Tirzah and Bet--" Mary was resolved against hearing any more against Tirzah and Bet, and actually shut herself into the granary till Nanny was gone. And there she sat down on a sack of peas and fairly cried at the thought of the sin and ignorant unconsciousness of evil all round her. And then she prayed a little prayer for help and wisdom for these poor people and themselves. Then she felt cheered up and hopeful. CHAPTER SEVEN. SUNDAY SCHOOL. "She hastens to the Sunday School." _Jane Taylor_.