94 Wild Life in a Southern County. 
Now and then a woman, too, may be found who 
lectures in the little cottage room where ten or fifteen, 
perhaps twenty, are packed almost to suffocation ; or 
she prays aloud and.the rest respond. Sometimes, 
no doubt, persons of little sincerity practise these 
things from pure vanity and the ambition of preaching 
—for there is ambition in cottage life as elsewhere ; 
but the men and women I speak of are thoroughly 
in earnest. ” 
Cottagers have their own social creed and customs. 
In their intercourse, one point which seems to be in- 
sisted upon particularly is a previous knowledge or 
acquaintance. The very people whose morals are 
known to be none of the strictest—and cottage 
morality is sometimes very far from severe—will 
refuse, and especially the women, to admit a strange 
girl, for instance, to sleep in their house for ample 
remuneration, even when introduced by really re- 
spectable persons. Servant-girls in the country where 
railways even now are few and far between often walk 
long distances to see mistresses in want of assistance, 
by appointment. They get tired; perhaps night 
approaches and then comes the difficulty, of lodging 
them if the house happens to be full. Cottagers make 
the greatest difficulty, unless by some chance it should 
be discovered that they met the girl’s uncle or cousin 
years ago. 
To their friends and neighbours, on the contrary, 
they are often very kind, and ready to lend a helping 
