True to his Colours | Page 4

beef--tea for a sick relation or friend.
She wound up her education at school by covering her teachers and herself with honour by her answers, first to the elementary, and then to the advanced questions in the papers sent down from the London Science and Art Department. And when she left school, at the age of seventeen, to take the place at home of her mother, who was now laid by through an attack of paralysis, she received the public congratulations of the school managers, and was afterwards habitually quoted as an example of what might be acquired in the humbler ranks of life by diligence, patience, and perseverance.
As for her religious education, it was what might have been expected under the circumstances. Her parents, ignorant of the truth themselves, though well-disposed, as it is called, to religion, had sent her when quite a little one to the Sunday-school, where she picked up a score or two of texts and as many hymns. She also had gone to church regularly once every Sunday, but certainly had acquired little other knowledge in the house of God than an acquaintance with the most ingenious methods of studying picture-books and story-books on the sly, and of trying the patience of the teachers whose misfortune it was for the time to be in command of the children's benches during divine service.
As she grew up, however, Sunday-school and church were both forsaken. Tired with constant study and the few household duties which she could not avoid performing, she was glad to lie in bed till the Sunday-school bell summoned earlier risers; and with the school, the attendance at church also was soon abandoned.
In summer-time, dressed in clothes which were gay rather than neat or becoming, she would stroll out across the hills during afternoon service with some like-minded female companion, and return by tea-time listless and out of spirits, conscious of a great want, but unconscious of the only way to satisfy it. For Kate Evans had a mind and heart which kept her from descending into the paths of open sin. Many young women there were around her, neglecters, like herself, of God, his house, and his day, who had plunged into the depths of open profligacy; but with such she had neither intercourse nor sympathy, for she shrunk instinctively from everything that was low and coarse. Yet she walked in darkness; an abiding shadow rested on her spirit. She had gained admiration and won esteem, but she wanted peace. Her heart was hungry, and must needs remain so till it should find its only true satisfying food in "Jesus, the bread of life."
Such was Kate Evans when she had reached the age of twenty--restless, unsatisfied, fretting under the restraints and privations of a poor working-man's home, shrinking from earning her bread by the labour of her hands, yet unable--for her heart would not allow her--to apply for any school work which might remove her from the home where her services were greatly needed by her now bed-ridden mother.
It was, then, with no small gratification, though not without some misgivings, that she found herself the object of special attentions on the part of William Foster. She was well aware that he was no friend to religion, but then he was supposed to be highly moral; and she felt not a little flattered by the devoted service of a man who was the oracle of the working-classes on all matters of science and higher literature; while he on his part was equally pleased with the prospect of having for his wife one who, both in personal attractions and education, was universally allowed to be in her rank the flower of Crossbourne.
Kate's parents, however, were very unwilling that the intimacy between Foster and their child should lead to a regular engagement. They had the good sense to see that he who "feared not God" was not very likely to "regard man," nor woman either; and they were also well aware that the public-house and the club would be pretty sure to retain a large share of Foster's affections after marriage.
But remonstrance and advice were in vain; love was to take the place of religion, and was to gather into the new home all the cords which would have a tendency to draw the young man in a different direction. And neighbours and friends said, "Young people would be young people;" that Kate would turn any man into a good husband; and that she would be near at hand to look in upon her old father and mother. So the attachment duly ripened without further check; and before she was one and twenty, Kate Evans was married to William Foster at the registrar's office.
And now, on this December evening, rather more than a year had gone by since