Mrs. Morrison's anger was perfectly proper. It had been the
conscientious endeavour of twenty-five solid years of her life to make
of Symford a model parish, and working under Lady Shuttleworth, whose
power was great since all the cottages were her son's and were lived
in by his own labourers, it had been kept in a state of order so
nearly perfect as to raise it to the position of an example to the
adjoining parishes. The church was full, the Sunday-school well
attended, the Sabbath was kept holy, the women were one and all sober
and thrifty, the men were fairly satisfactory except on Saturday
nights, there was no want, little sickness, and very seldom downright
sin. The expression downright sin is Mrs. Morrison's own,--heaven
forbid that I should have anything to do with such an expression--and
I suppose she meant by it thieving, murder, and other grossnesses that
would bring the sinner, as she often told her awe-struck Dorcas class,
to infallible gallows, and the sinner's parents' grey hairs to
sorrowful graves. "Please mum, will the parents go too?" asked a girl
one day who had listened breathlessly, an inquiring-minded girl who
liked to get to the root of things.
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