Hester Wilmot, I am sorry to observe, had been by nature peevish and lazy; she would, when a child, now and then slight her work, and when her mother was unreasonable she was too apt to return a saucy answer; but when she became acquainted with her own heart, and with the Scriptures, these evil tempers were, in a good measure, subdued, for she now learned to imitate, not her violent mother, but _Him who was meek and lowly_. When she was scolded for doing ill, she prayed for grace to do better; and the only answer she made to her mother's charge, "that religion only served to make people lazy," was to strive to do twice as much work, in order to prove that it really made them diligent. The only thing in which she ventured to disobey her mother was, that when she ordered her to do week-day's work on a Sunday, Hester cried, and said, she did not dare to disobey God; but to show that she did not wish to save her own labor, she would do a double portion of work on the Saturday night, and rise two hours earlier on Monday morning. Once, when she had worked very hard, her mother told her that she would treat her with a holiday the following Sabbath, and take her a fine walk to eat cakes and drink ale at Weston fair, which, though it was professed to be kept on the Monday, yet, to the disgrace of the village, always began on the Sunday evening.[8] Rebecca, who would on no account have wasted the Monday, which was a working day, in idleness and pleasure, thought she had a very good right to enjoy herself at the fair on the Sunday evening, as well as to take her children. Hester earnestly begged to be left at home, and her mother, in a rage, went without her. A wet walk, and more ale than she was used to drink, gave Rebecca a dangerous fever. During this illness Hester, who would not follow her to a scene of dissolute mirth, attended her night and day, and denied herself necessaries that her sick mother might have comforts; and though she secretly prayed to God that this sickness might change her mother's heart, yet she never once reproached her, or put her in mind that it was caught by indulging in a sinful pleasure. [8] This practice is too common. Those fairs which profess to be kept on Monday, commonly begin on the Sunday. It is much to be wished that magistrates would put a stop to it, as Mr. Simpson did at Weston, at the request of Mrs. Jones. There is another great evil worth the notice of justices. In many villages, during the fair, ale is sold at private houses, which have no license, to the great injury of sobriety and good morals.