86 THE WORLD'S WORKERS. 



and her approving word, with the gift of a flower, a 

 picture, or a Testament, often made sad homes cheer- 

 ful, and renewed the courage of the wavering." 



It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that 

 Miss Carpenter's influence was so powerful that her 

 rough pupils at once became docile when she 

 appeared, and that rudeness and lawlessness changed 

 into gentleness and order in her presence. She had 

 her encouragements, of course, even she could not 

 have kept on without them ; but she had her trials 

 too in full abundance. Miss Cobbe, in an article 

 published some years ago in the Modern Review, has 

 drawn a picture of Mary Carpenter while at work, 

 which is wonderfully life-like and real. Miss Cobbe 

 says : 



" It was a wonderful spectacle to see Mary Car- 

 penter sitting patiently before the large school gallery 

 in St. James's Back, teaching, singing, and praying 

 with the wild street-boys, in spite of endless inter- 

 ruptions caused by such proceedings as shooting 

 marbles at any object behind her, whistling, stamping, 

 fighting, shrieking out " Amen," in the middle of the 

 prayer, and sometimes rising en masse, and tearing 

 like a troop of bisons in hob-nailed shoes down from 

 the gallery, round the great school-room, and down the 

 stairs, and into the street. These irrepressible out- 

 breaks she bore with infinite good-humour." 



In the course of her daily work Miss Carpenter must 

 have had some strange experiences, and it is greatly 



