Helen had been back from London some three weeks, but in spite of her endeavours to settle down again into the village life, she had not been very successful in doing so. Duties which before had seemed tolerable enough had become frightfully tedious, while those which before had seemed tedious had become intolerable. Only the evening before her father had spoken to her about her general behaviour _à propos_ of what he called the “falling-off” of the village choir. This meant that on the previous Sunday the organist had played one tune and the choir had sung another, which had displeased his unmusical ear, though Martin, who had been home from Cambridge for the Sunday, had listened with rapt attention, and said to Helen that he thought it extremely Wagnerian. This opinion, it may be remarked, he had not expressed to his father. “I am afraid your pleasure-trip to London has unsettled you, Helen,” her father had said, “and you should really take yourself in hand, and make up your mind to recapture your habits of industry again. One is often disposed to be impatient with what one calls ‘little duties,’ but, dear girl, there is no such thing as a little duty. There is no such scale possible; duty is duty, and it is all great; and your eager and willing performance of all those things which may seem to you small is just as much a part of real life as to the emperor the discharge of the cares of his empire. For instance, the hymn at the morning service on Sunday----“ “But it isn’t my fault if Mr. Milton plays the wrong hymn,” said Helen. “But it ought to be impossible that such accidents should occur,” said her father. “You should think, dear Helen, in Whose Honour it is that we stand up to sing in church, and that knowledge constantly with you, you will find must elevate the smallest duty and raise the most insignificant piece of work into an act of praise and worship.” “I will try, father,” said she. “I know you will. Your holiday, all the mirth and innocent pleasure you have had in London, ought to help you to it. Those times of refreshment are given us not to make us discontented with our work, but to enable us to bring to it a rested and more active industry.”